Starship Titanic

1st Broadcast Sunday 19th December 2021 at 3pm BBC Radio 4

Director

Dirk Maggs

Producer

David Morley

Creator

Douglas Adams

Written By

Terry Jones

Ian Billings

Produced For

BBC Radio 4

Produced by

A Perfectly Normal production for BBC Radio 4

Synopsis

A tale of interstellar skulduggery, romance and unhinged robots based in Douglas Adams's universe.

Far off in the centre of one of the less well-chartered quadrants of the universe, a vast civilisation is preparing to launch the most technologically advanced starship ever - Starship Titanic. While the galaxy's media looks on, it unfortunately undergoes SMEF (Spontaneous Massive Existence Failure) and disappears. Leovinus, the designer of the ship, uncovers shoddy workmanship, poor cybernetics and a series of increasingly eccentric robots. The owners, Scraliontis and Brobostigan, were intent on destroying the ship and claiming the insurance.

Meanwhile in Oxfordshire, four humans are inspecting a property they intend buying, only to see it crushed under the re-materialising Starship. This disaster is swiftly followed by an invitation from an over-attentive robot to come aboard, and Lucy, Dan and Nettie are catapulted into a series of increasingly bizarre encounters.

Stylistically emulating the work of the great Douglas Adams in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, the late Terry Jones weaves a fabulously mad and comic tale.