So Long and Thanks for All the Fish – Geoffrey Perkins

When I heard this morning that Geoffrey Perkins had died, my mind went back to the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – The Original Radio Scripts.

As I’ve mentioned on AiB before, I discovered at about age 11 or 12 that the school library had the published scripts from the original Radio 4 series squirreled away in the non-fiction section. (They were republished in 2003 and still available.)

Geoffrey Perkins produced the radio series of HHGTTG – the first BBC radio comedy in stereo – and gets two prominent credits on the front of the script book.

A comedy performer and producer, Perkins created the Mornington Crescent game featured in I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue and the uk.games.mornington-crescent and alt.games.mornington.crescent newsgroups. He went on to become BBC TV head of comedy, as well as producing Catherine Tate Show, the Fast Show and the first series of Father Ted.

He died after being knocked down by a flatbed van in London’s Marylebone High Street on Friday morning. His latest production, Harry And Paul, with Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse, is due to start airing on BBC One next Friday night at 9pm. Update - Guardian's obituary.