Dirk Gently The BBC Radio Collection

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Everything is connected! Before Netflix adapted Douglas Adams’ beloved Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, there were two radio series featuring Harry Enfield as the titular oddball detective.

Dirk Gently is a detective with a difference. Based on his belief in the fundamental interconnectedness of all things, he investigates mysterious circumstances through a holistic approach – if everything is connected then he might just ask you to buy him pizza so he can glean clues from that pizza through holistic techniques. Or maybe this just started as a scam to get free pizza – but his encounters with the bizarre and occult, and his outcomes speak for themselves

Series One: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

Based on the novel of the same name, Dirk Gently finds himself embroiled in a a series of mysterious circumstancs; a corpse was strangled after it was shot, a Horse covered in pink dust, the lost poetry of Coleridge, the found music of JS Bach, a whole slew of missing cats … and an Electric Monk in search of something to Believe In.

Applying his unique holistic skills, Dirk Gently, must join the dots in a random series of events and come up with a solution that reveals a secret so huge that the entirety of everything hinges on it.

Starring: Harry Enfield, Olivia Coleman, Billy Boyd, Andrew Sachs, Felicity Montagu and others.

Series Two: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

Harry Enfield’s Dirk Gently returns in this full-cast dramatisation of Douglas Adams’s novel.

Dirk has fallen on hard times and – dressed as a gypsy woman – is using his irritatingly accurate clairvoyant powers to read palms.

Everything changes when he meets a record company executive, with an outlandish story involving a goblin, a hairy, green-eyed, scythe-wielding monster and a recording contract signed in blood. The answer to these snowballing mysteries soon involve Norse mythology and a classically involved Douglas Adams plot..

Starring: Harry Enfield, Olivia Coleman, Billy Boyd, Jim Carter and Peter Davison

Purchase from Amazon here

Available on Audible

BBC Series page is archived here

Episode List

Series One: Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency

S01E01 – In which Dirk Gently discovers that Richard Macduff is not himself – and Gordon Way has a permanent out-of-the-body experience.
S01E02 – In which there’s a teaspoon in the metronome, a salt cellar in the earthenware and a horse in the bathroom.
S01E03 – In which Dirk inspects the scene of the crime, Gilks behaves oddly and Gordon wakes up dead.
S01E04 – In which Richard takes a dip, the Monk orders a milkshake and Dirk jumps to conclusions.
S01E05 – In which matters come to several heads, and the dead walk among us …
S01E06 – In which the simple solution is not always the most obvious … or helpful … or correct.

Series Two: The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

S02E01 – In which Dirk Gently loses a secretary and Odin sells his soul
S02E02 – In which Gilks makes a discovery and Dirk breaks a nose
S02E03 – In which Dirk buys a nifty gadget and Kate visits an iffy clinic
S02E04 – In which Thor drops a Clanger in Sharp’s Flat
S02E05 – In which Dirk outwits an Eagle and the Draycotts find an eager nitwit
S02E06 – In which Thor succeeds in losing his temper and Dirk fails to save himself