I forgot this in my roundup of 2025, party because it’s not the first time I’ve read it, and partly because I read it at the very end of the year.

I reread some Douglas Adams every couple of years, and every time I come away impressed. I discover details or a clever turn of phrase that I’d missed previously. I almost expect to be disappointed but it hasn’t happened yet¹.

This is likely the first time I’ve read Restaurant as someone older than Adams² made it. It’s not an original observation that he died too young, but milestones like these hit you hard.

December was Hitchhiker’s Guide month for me. In addition to reading the second book, I went to see the “immersive theatre” version of the story. I had bought tickets a long time in advance and spent much of the time wondering if I’d made a terrible mistake. Were they just cashing in on Adams name and throngs of naive, deluded fans?

Nearer the time I learned that Sanjeev Bhaskar was voicing a Vogon and Tamsin Greig was the book. Both favourites in this household, my level of optimism increased.

Then I learned that Arvind Ethan David wrote the script. By no means a guarantee of success, but at least I knew he cared about the source material. That’s something.

The result was pretty good. Not quite like any of the existing versions, but then all of them are slightly different. The story tied together threads from the original works in new ways, and it largely worked. You didn’t need to have read the books but there were references that made more sense if you had.

The “immersive” aspect was mixed. In the first scene³, attendees milled around with the cast, which was fun. We spoke with Fenchurch. Massive case of esprit d’escallier afterwards, but the actors probably get sick of too-clever-by-half fans so maybe I just avoided making a fool of myself! We lost a little momentum moving from set to set, and there was one where a few things appeared to be going on at the same time and you were constantly wondering if you were missing something important.

I was slightly disappointed that we were the only people wearing dressing gowns, but there were a few people carrying towels.

In the end, it wasn’t a cheap afternoon but it was worth supporting. And the kids finally learned the source of many of my references.

Indeed, the kids were so impressed that when we had a road trip later in December, they – unprompted – requested that we play the radio show version rather than our usual mix of Just A Minute, Infinite Monkey Cage, and Sorry I Haven’t A Clue.

So not only did I read the second book and attend a live version of Hitchhikers, I listened to the first two phases⁴ of the radio series.

Many consider the radio show to be the best version of Hitchhikers. While I do waver, on most days I would agree. Again, it’s likely a few years since I listened to the whole thing, but it still works. There are few phrases that, maybe, you wouldn’t say any more. Adams was a twenty-something man in the late Seventies when he wrote it; I think a few minor transgressions my modern standards are acceptable and expected. And there’s nothing really bad, and much more that you might consider the seeds of the more explicitly humanist outlook we’d see as he got older.

It’s amazing to think that I’ve been enjoying the Hitchhikers Guide since first reading it in my teens, and it pleases me that new and younger audiences can get a kick out of it, too.