Episode 1 of 6. Next Thursday 18-30 Radio 4. (presumably available on Iplayer)

Simon Jones stars as Arthur Dent in a brand new full-cast series based on And Another Thing..., the sixth book in the famous Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy.

Forty years on from the first ever radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur Dent and friends return to be thrown back into the Whole General Mish Mash, in a rattling adventure involving Viking Gods and Irish Confidence Tricksters, with our first glimpse of Eccentrica Gallumbits and a brief but memorable moment with The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast Of Traal.

Starring John Lloyd as The Book, with Simon Jones as Arthur, Geoff McGivern as Ford Prefect, Mark Wing-Davey as Zaphod Beeblebrox, Sandra Dickinson and Susan Sheridan as Trillian, Jim Broadbent as Marvin the Paranoid Android and Jane Horrocks as Fenchurch. The cast also includes Samantha Béart, Toby Longworth, Andy Secombe, Ed Byrne, Lenny Henry, Philip Pope, Mitch Benn, Jon Culshaw and Professor Stephen Hawking.

The series is written and directed by Dirk Maggs and based on And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer, with additional unpublished material by Douglas Adams.