Dirk Gently (TV series)

Dirk Gently
Titlescreen, based on Gently's painted whiteboard.
Format	Comic science fiction/Detective fiction
Written by	Douglas Adams (novel) Howard Overman (screenplay)
Directed by	Damon Thomas
Starring	Stephen Mangan Darren Boyd Helen Baxendale Doreen Mantle
Theme music composer	Daniel Pemberton
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Language(s)	English
No. of episodes	1
Production
Producer(s)	Chris Carey
Running time	1 hour
Broadcast
Original channel	BBC Four BBC HD
Picture format	HDTV (1080i)
Audio format	Stereo
Original airing	16 December 2010
Chronology
Related shows	The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
External links
Website

Dirk Gently is a 2010 television drama inspired by Douglas Adams's novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. Broadcast by BBC Four on 16 December 2010 and repeated throughout the Christmas period, it was a pilot episode for a forthcoming television series based on the detective.^[1]

In the hour-long pilot, "holistic detective" Dirk Gently is hired by an old lady to investigate the disappearance of a cat, a case that gives him a new fridge and re-acquaints him with two old friends from university. Together they uncover a plot involving time travel, unrequited love, depression and murder.

The comedy-drama is a loose adaptation of plot elements from Adams' 1987 novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, although it updates the detective to the present day and focuses on only a few of the original novel's characters and plot threads. Critical reception to the pilot was generally positive, and in March 2011 BBC Four announced that it had commissioned a three-part series of one hour-long episodes, the first continuing drama series produced for the channel.^[2][3]

Production

Background

Adams had published two Dirk Gently novels by the time of his death; Holistic Detective Agency (1987), The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988) and the incomplete The Salmon of Doubt (fragments published posthumously). Each novel features new characters and scenarios, although Dirk (real name Svlad Cjelli), his "ex-secretary" Janice Pearce and Sergeant, later Inspector, Gilks recur in each.^[4]

The first Gently novel had previously been adapted into a stage play, Dirk and a BBC Radio 4 series by Above the Title Productions which was first broadcast in October 2007 and featured comedian Harry Enfield in the title role.^[5][6][7] However, according to James Donaghy, Douglas Adams was frustrated that his Dirk Gently novels were never adapted for the screen.^[1]

Announcement

During Hitchcon, the first Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy convention, Ed Victor, a literary agent who represents Adams's estate announced that a television adaptation of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency was in production. Stephen Mangan was announced to be playing Gently, with Darren Boyd as Macduff and Helen Baxendale as Susan. It is the first television adaptation of Adams' Dirk Gently series, although characters from the books had appeared in a 1992 episode of The South Bank Show.^[8][9]

Shooting commenced early in October 2010 in Bristol.^[4] The director was Damon Thomas and the producer was Chris Carey. Although it was commissioned by the BBC, it was produced by ITV Studios with The Welded Tandem Picture Company. The pilot was first broadcast on BBC Four on 16 December 2010 and was repeated a number of times during the next month.^[10][11]

The pilot gained a commission on 31 March 2011 for a three-part series of one hour-long episodes to be broadcast on BBC Four in 2012.^[2][3] Stephen Mangan suggested on his Twitter feed that he does not yet know which stories or plotlines will be adapted.^[12] The series will be the first continuing drama series commissioned by BBC Four.^[2]

Adaptation

The screenplay by Howard Overman is not a direct adaptation of the novel, but uses certain characters and situations from the novel to form the basis of a new drama centred around Dirk.^[13] Stephen Mangan, writing a BBC blog on the programme stated "In my opinion, Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul are unfilmable as written...too much happens, there are too many ideas".^[14]

The adaptation concentrates on two relatively minor plot strands in the novel: the disappearance of a cat, and the simultaneous disappearance of Gordon Way. Although time travel is involved in the solution, the novel's entire St Cedd's / Electric Monk / Coleridge strand is omitted, although key words relating to these elements do appear on Dirk's whiteboard when it is first seen, though they are never subsequently referred to.^[1][15]

Other elements from the book, such as the trapped sofa, are also absent and the setting is updated to 2010, with email and voicemail replacing the answering machine messages in the book. There are changes to the characters too, one notable one being that Susan is Gordon's ex-girlfriend rather than his sister.^[15]

Cast

Stephen Mangan, best known for his role in the television series Green Wing, and subsequently Episodes, was cast in the main role as holistic detective Dirk Gently. Mangan already knew the novel and the author's works, stating in a press release "I've been a fan of Douglas Adams ever since the Hitchhiker's radio series which I used to record as a child and listen to over and over again in my bedroom. It's such a thrill to now be playing one of his brilliant characters. Dirk is a chaotic, anarchic force of nature with a totally unique take on the world. He is described as 'lazy, untidy, dismissive and unreliable'. I've absolutely no idea why they thought I'd be right for the role."^[13] Cast alongside him were Darren Boyd and Helen Baxendale, both whom had previously worked with Mangan in Green Wing and Adrian Mole: the Cappuccino Years respectively.^[4]

• Dirk Gently - Stephen Mangan
• Richard McDuff- Darren Boyd
• Susan Harmison - Helen Baxendale
• DI Gilks - Jason Watkins
• Janice Pearce - Lisa Jackson
• Ruth Jordan - Doreen Mantle
• Gordon Way - Anthony Howell
• Dr Gerstenberger - Miles Richardson
• Receptionist - Leona Walker

Plot

The episode opens with private investigator Dirk Gently asking the elderly Mrs Jordan for payment in his ongoing search for her missing cat. Leaving Mrs Jordan's house, he witnesses his old friend Richard McDuff breaking into her neighbour's house. It transpires that Richard was attempting to steal a laptop belonging to his girlfriend Susan Harmison, whom Richard has just split up with and has sent an insulting e-mail, which he now regrets.

On spotting clues suggesting the presence of the missing cat, they follow it into a nearby warehouse and encounter a bizarre machine. However, an explosion destroys the machine before they can investigate. It later transpires that the warehouse belongs to their fellow university alumnus, Gordon Way, a millionaire computer expert (and Susan's former suitor at college) who has gone missing.

Dirk soon deduces that events all seem to connect with the 5 December 1994, as that is the date where Susan broke up with Gordon because he missed a date (due to Dirk accidentally running Gordon over in his Austin Princess, when trying to escape an angry Richard), and the date on which Mrs Jordan's first cat, Henry, walked into her house. Recalling the equipment that he and Richard found in a warehouse near Susan's house, Dirk deduces that Gordon Way had developed a time machine to go back and save his relationship with Susan before it went wrong, with Mrs Jordan's cat getting into the machine with him and being sent back to the past (meaning that Mrs Jordan's two cats were actually the same cat).

Gordon, it is revealed, was killed in the past by Mrs Jordan after he saw her with her husband's dead body (Mrs Jordan having killed her husband when he began to mistreat the 'new' cat). Mrs Jordan subsequently commits suicide after tricking Dirk, Richard and Susan into leaving her so that she will not have to go to prison. At the episode's conclusion, Dirk has tricked Richard, via hypnosis, into investing his redundancy money into Dirk's firm, allowing Dirk to go to Barbados on an "investigation" while Richard is left as Dirk's new partner in the detective agency.

Reception

Dirk drives an elderly brown Austin Princess in the production.

The pilot episode gained 1.1m viewers (3.9% share) on BBC Four, which was over three times the channel's slot average.^[2] Critical reception for the pilot was largely positive. Several mentioned that it was only a loose adaptation of the novel, although the general consensus was that the essence of the original was maintained. Sam Wollaston in The Guardian stated "Coming to it fresh, it's a neat story about aforementioned missing cat and time travel, with a smattering of quantum physics and the fundamental connectedness of things. With a lovely performance from Doreen Mantle as the old lady/murderer. Stephen Mangan's good in the title role, too – a teeny bit irritating perhaps, but then Mangan is a teeny bit irritating. So is Dirk Gently, though – it's perfect. Funny too. Quite funny."^[16] James Donaghy, also writing in The Guardian stated "Personally I hope Dirk Gently gets made into a full series. The programme shows promising glimpses, has a strong cast and Misfits already proves Overman can write. And a BBC4 adaptation feels like a good fit – Gently being exactly the kind of playground-of-the-imagination curio the BBC made its name indulging."^[1]

The Independent published two reviews. Alice-Azania Jarvis was extremely positive, writing "...there wasn't very much you could fault about the production at all. Right down to the quirky camerawork and youthful, poppy soundtrack (who would have thought the Hoosiers could be so right in any situation?), the director, Damon Thomas, got it pretty spot-on. The result was a pleasingly festive-feeling adventure; part Wallace & Gromit, part Doctor Who, part The Secret Seven. And the best thing? There wasn't a Christmas tree in sight. Douglas Adams once claimed that Gently would make a better film character than his more famous hero, Arthur Dent. Based on last night's experience, he may well have been right."^[17] John Walsh's review for The Independent was cooler about the adaptation, although praised Mangan's performance: "Given the talent and style on display, it should have been a scream. In fact it all seemed a little moth-eaten. Though set in the modern day, it was staggeringly old-fashioned...You could overlook these faults, however, for the joy of Stephen Mangan's performance as the titular gumshoe. With his alarmed-spaniel eyes and jutting-jawed stroppiness, his geography teacher elbow-patches and Medusan hair, he radiates mess...His ineptness as a sleuth provided some fine comic moments.^[18]

Paul Whitelaw in Metro was also positive, although it noted "At times it felt forced, with a sense of trying slightly too hard when a touch more subtlety would have brought out the essential Adamsian eccentricity."^[19] Dan Owen of Obsessed with Film noted that the adaptation played with the idea of inexplicable situations: "Purists may grumble this isn't the Dirk Gently they wanted to see, but it's more accessible and practicable. And while Dirk Gently is certainly another gimmicky detective series (yawn), its details are unique and engrossing enough to shrug off the genre's clichés. In some ways it's a pastiche of whodunits, taking the genre's often tenuous explanations to an outrageous extreme."^[20]

Paul Whitelaw in The Scotsman noted that "Although Adams's more ambitious concepts are sidelined in favour of a more prosaic - if nonetheless enjoyable - sci-fi mystery, Overman captures at least some of the wit and whimsy of his distinctive comic voice" going on to suggest "This modestly-budgeted pilot suggests potential for a series, so the deviation from Adams's originals makes sense. It also adds yet another very British oddball to the pantheon currently occupied by Doctor Who and Sherlock.^[21]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d} James Donaghy "Douglas Adams's holistic detective Dirk Gently arrives on BBC4", The Guardian, 16 December 2010
2. ^ ^{a b c d} "Dirk Gently to return to BBC Four", BBC Press Release, 31 March 2011
3. ^ ^{a b} Jason Deans, "Dirk Gently to return to BBC4", The Guardian, 31 March 2011
4. ^ ^{a b c} Chris Harvey, "Dirk Gently: Douglas Adams's detective finally cracks TV", Daily Telegraph, 16 December 2010
5. ^ "BBC - Press Office - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency opens for business". http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/07_july/13/dirk.shtml. Retrieved 2007-08-14. 
6. ^ Dirk Maggs News and New Projects page
7. ^ July 2007 BBC announcement of radio version
8. ^ Rob Hastings, "BBC set to film Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently novel", The Independent, 6 October 2010
9. ^ The South Bank Show: Douglas Adams at the Internet Movie Database
10. ^ Radio Times listing
11. ^ "BBC News - Stephen Mangan to star as detective Dirk Gently". 6 October 2010. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11482882. Retrieved 2010-10-10. 
12. ^ Steve Mangan on Twitter
13. ^ ^{a b} "BBC - Press Office - Stephen Mangan to play Dirk Gently in drama based on Douglas Adams' novel". http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2010/10_october/05/gently.shtml. Retrieved 2010-10-10. 
14. ^ Mangan, Stephen (2010-12-16). "Douglas Adams' Dirk Gently: How slavishly should a screen adaptation follow the book?". BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/tv/2010/12/douglas-adams-dirk-gently-stephen-mangan.shtml. Retrieved 2010-12-20. 
15. ^ ^{a b} Tom Chivers, "Dirk Gently on BBC4: would Douglas Adams have recognised his creation?", Daily Telegraph, December 17th, 2010
16. ^ Sam Wollaston "TV review: The House That Made Me; Dirk Gently", The Guardian, 16 December 2010
17. ^ Alice-Azania Jarvis "Last Night's TV: Dirk Gently/BBC4", The Independent, 17 December 2010
18. ^ John Walsh, "Dirk Gently, BBC4, Thursday", The Independent, Sunday, 19 December 2010
19. ^ Keith Watson, "Stephen Mangan perfect for Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently", Metro, 16th December, 2010
20. ^ Dan Owen, "TV Review: Dirk Gently", Obsessed with Film, December 17, 2010
21. ^ Paul Whitelaw, "TV preview: Dirk Gently", The Scotsman, 13 December 2010

External links

• Dirk Gently at the Internet Movie Database