Douglas Adams is arguably the most famous writer to have ever been associated with Doctor Who thanks to the massive success of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. His time on the show was relatively brief, spanning just a couple of years, but he nonetheless made an indelible mark on the history of Doctor Who.
Adams studied English Literature at St John’s College, Cambridge in the early seventies, where he was eventually accepted into the famous Cambridge Footlights at the second attempt in 1973. He contributed to a number of comedy revue shows and after leaving university formed a writing relationship with Monty Python’s Graham Chapman. Though this led to him making occasional contributions to Python the relationship ultimately was unsuccessful with the majority of their projects never seeing the light of day. This led to a lengthy fallow period for Adams with only occasional contributions to various BBC radio shows.
Things changed for Adams when the BBC commissioned the first radio series of his most famous work The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. The series first aired in 1978 and following it’s success he was given a position as a radio producer for the BBC. He stayed for just six months before he was offered the script editing job on Doctor Who. The second series of the radio show was broadcast in 1980 and the first novels in the five-part ‘trilogy’ were also published in 1979 and 1980 respectively.
Adams was first commissioned to write for Doctor Who after submitting the then unmade original script of Hitchhikers to the makers of the show. A fan of the show from childhood, he was asked to write the second part of the 1978 ‘Key to Time’ series. The Pirate Planet is unmistakably Adams, filled with his own unique sense of humour and featuring a number of larger than life characters, it also recycles a number of lines from his Hitchhikers script, which at that stage he was unaware would ever be produced.
On the back of the success of his script and his clear love for the show he was recommended by outgoing script editor Anthony Read as a potential successor, despite his relative inexperience. After such a long period of inactivity Adams jumped at the chance of regular work and he accepted the role of script editor for season 17. Very quickly after accepting the position however, Hitchhikers became an incredible success and Adams found himself trying to combine his Doctor Who duties with writing radio, novel and the TV versions of his own creation. Given Adams’ famously chaotic and at times seemingly reluctant approach to writing it isn’t surprising that he felt only able to stay with Doctor Who for one series. Despite the pressure he suddenly found himself under little elements of Adams’ style are evident throughout the five completed episodes of his tenure. Undoubtedly his greatest contribution to the show though came when script problems forced him to pen the second serial of the season himself. City of Death is a remarkable piece of writing, often topping polls of the best Doctor Who serials ever and reportedly shown to the new shows creators by Russell T. Davies as an example of how he wanted the series to move forward. The script is full of wit and charm and the dialogue is almost endlessly quotable. While it benefits from a location shoot in Paris and a fine cast on top form it is Adam’s script which is the star performer. Sadly Adams’ final contribution to Doctor Who, Shada was never completed due to strikes at the BBC, but the sections that were made indicate another wonderful piece of work.
As well as his work on the wonderful Hitchhikers Guide series which would make Adams a millionaire he also produced the fantastic The Meaning of Liff book alongside John Lloyd (the book was recently the subject of a lovely radio4 show on its 30th anniversary) and The Dirk Gently novels, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, which again exhibited Adams’ talent for recycling by using elements of his Shada script. The Dirk Gently stories have also subsequently been turned into both radio and television series by the BBC. Sadly Adams died tragically early in 2001 aged just 49 robbing us of one of British comedies greatest writers. It’s testament to his huge talent that he is still held in such high esteem by both his contemporaries and the public at large. Today would have been his 61st birthday.
Additional birthday mentions should go to John Barrowman, Alex Kingston and director Graeme Harper. So many birthdays today, so little time to write!
sportswhofan 
Douglas is terribly missed. His brand of humour was unique. But it does live on in others like Neil Gaiman, and in comic novels like THE MYOSHI EFFECT. Happy Bday DNA.