The multi-million best-selling author Douglas Adams has written 3 Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books, radio and tv series. But he has reached a crisis – not for the first time – writer’s block.
AS his publisher’s deadline looms, he has been held a virtual prisoner in an hotel by his editor until the book surfaces. Trouble is he hasn’t even started it. And there you have the beginning, middle and end of this compact little comedy drama which barely reaches to 45 minutes.
Adam Gardiner is the energetic, arrogant hound Adams – all bathrobe and tousled hair. And at first you think this is just going to be an amusing monologue about creativity and where ideas come from.
But enter his bathroom plastic duck, played larger than life with an American bearish gusto by Robert Stuart-Hudson. In his yellow tail suit, he is everything you would want a writer’s inspiration to be – acrobatic, knock-about, Sharon-witted and full of ideas- most of them crazy.
In a strange parallel universe sequence the duck becomes pimple-smoking novelist P G Wodehouse , author of 92 books to Douglas’s 3 and just a mighty thorn in his flesh.
When the duck returns and the deadline passes, Adams is given true inspiration at last – and subsequently out comes the 4th book of the trilogy (joke) Goodbye And Thanks For All The Fish.
Gardiner’s fresh-faced exuberance and Stuart-Hudson’s resilient optimism make this a fun 45 minutes, however infinitely improbable it may be (Adams fans will understand that reference). No need to panic, but catch it somewhere else on tour if you can.
We Apologise for the inconvenience, written by Mark Griffiths and directed by Ross Kelly, was at The Warren as part of the Brighton Fringe .
Review by Brian Butler
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