Top 5 Douglas Adams characters

Stephen Mangan returns to BBC Four in Dirk Gently next week as the morally dubious, self-styled Holistic Detective. In anticipation, CultBox are thumbing a lift around the galaxy of creator Douglas Adams's finest characters...

Archive letter: Douglas Adams writes to Disney exec

During the return flight of a fruitless trip to L.A., close to boiling point, Adams expertly wrote the following letter to Disney executive David Vogel, complete with a comically long list of ways for him to get in touch.

Stars gather to mark Douglas Adams' 60th

The 60th birthday of the late writer Douglas Adams, creator of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, is to be marked with a special show.

Stephen Fry to judge H2G2 animation comp

TV presenter Stephen Fry is to judge an international competition, launched by literature and technology site The Literary Platform, to animate an audio recording of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy author Douglas Adams.

Celebrate life, the universe and everything in 2012

Sunday, 11 March, 2012, Douglas Adams's 60th birthday, is the day to celebrate the man who gave us life, the universe and everything.

Towel Day wrapped up

The annual celebration of Douglas Adams's 'massively useful' piece of interstellar travel kit keeps on growing. Have you been taking part?

Douglas Adams fans get their towels out

It's Towel Day all over the world for fans of Douglas Adams's The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Towel Day: a hoopy frood pays homage

The lovable silliness of Douglas Adams has an enduring appeal that will keep people looking for their towels for years to come.

Meddling with the novels of such a geek luminary as Douglas Adams is a precarious business, so it's no surprise that this reworking of his Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - first shown on BBC4 last December - had ardent fans up in arms over the deviation from its source novel. But a series has been commissioned, so all their favourite bits of the books have a chance to make it to the screen. For the rest of us there is enough to appreciate in a plot that expands from a case of a missing cat to some surreal flights of fancy. Stephen Mangan is great as the chaotic, evasive Gently, while Darren Boyd does a great line in bewilderment as an unwitting sidekick.

Stephen Mangan's not-great-but-better-than-expected turn as Douglas Adams's holistic detective actually stands up to a second viewing, so even if you watched it on BBC4, you may be surprised to find you like it more this time around.