The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy remains an all-time favourite with book, radio, TV and film audiences in the UK. Steve Pratt talks to Simon Jones ,who first brought us hero Arthur Dent, and discusses the latest stage tour

IFORGOT to ask Simon Jones whether he was clutching a towel. It was, after all, National Towel Day when we spoke and he’s one of those responsible for the existence of such a special day, celebrated every May 25 by followers of The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy.

Then again he wasn’t wearing his trademark dressing gown either. Understandably, as he’d have looked pretty ridiculous dressed in one on a Virgin Train en route from Manchester to London.

Jones is set to put on the aforementioned attire again in the latest incarnation of the cult series as The Hitchhikers’ Guide To The Galaxy Radio Show – Live! The show is embarking on a tour of one-night stands around the country, with Newcastle and York on the schedule.

Jones will be bringing back to life Arthur Dent, a role that was written for him by Hitchhikers’ creator Douglas Adams, whom he met at Cambridge University. Also returning are Geoff McGivern as Ford Prefect, Susan Sheridan as Trillian, Mark Wing-Davey as Zaphod Beeblebrox and Stephen Moore as the voice of Marvin the Paranoid Android.

Adams’ comic sci-fi saga spawned five best-selling novels, five award-winning BBC radio series, a TV series and a movie. Translated into over 30 languages, it has been voted number one audio book ever and fourth best-loved book in Britain.

It is, not to beat about the bush, a multi-media phenomenon.

Jones isn’t so much coming back to Hitchhikers because, as he says, it never really went away.

“Every few years we get together the cast for yet another expedition into yet another medium,” he says of HHGTTG.

They discovered that a stage version was a good idea in 2009 following the publication of the sixth book in the series, written by Eoin Colfer following Adams’s death in 2001. There was a Hitchcon 2009 convention at London’s Royal Festival Hall that culminated in an appearance by the cast performing highlights from the first two series.

To everyone’s great astonishment, recalls Jones, they went down a storm. “Someone would come on stage and the audience would go mad. It was like we had sung our greatest hits. We thought there’s something in this and we’ve got to take it to the public.

“This is a natural extension of the original radio series which was recorded in front of a live audience in the BBC’s Paris Theatre in London.”

The touring version will feature VIP guests as the Voice Of The Book – Lord Of The Rings star Billy Boyd in Newcastle, John Challis from Only Fools And Horses in York. The format is a radio programme performed on a stage, with the show available to download afterwards.

“We don’t want people of a certain age standing in front of a row of microphones. That would not be terrible exciting. So there’ll be live sound effects, a live band and visual effects. It should be pretty comical visually,” says Jones.

He seems happy to be Arthur Dent from time to time. “He never really leaves me alone, but he’s not someone I trip over all the time. It’s nice to be reminded of him.”

When Jones was approached about playing Arthur Dent in the original 1978 radio series he though the worse that could happen was that he’d get paid £25 by the BBC. “It was Douglas and it was fun and it was clearly a very intelligent and interesting script, but who knew where it was going to go?,” he says.

Success was instant with the original series repeated immediately by public demand, something that had never happened before in the history of light entertainment. BBC bosses, he surmised, didn’t much rate its chances as they put out the first shows at 10.30pm, hardly primetime.

Since HHGTTG, Jones has divided his working time between here and the US after marrying the American manager of Monty Python. The double whammy of Hitchhikers and TV’s Brideshead Revisited (in which he played Bridey, the Earl of Brideshead) stood him in good stead with US casting directors. “They kept throwing work at me.

Those two series had been very successful which was great for an actor,” he says.

His voice, still very English despite his time in the US, has been a dead giveaway in people recognising him and employing him as a voice actor.

“The nadir of my film career was when a casting director rang up and said they wanted me to play Rene Russo’s accountant in the remake of The Thomas Crown Affair. I was only heard on the end of a telephone. I didn’t meet Rene Russo, I just turned up and sat in another room and said my lines over the telephone.

“The final straw was later when a friend in South Africa said, ‘I heard you in The Thomas Crown Affair’.”

He does get to play Americans, but not very often. “That’s not what they want me for. I don’t like to think of myself as a spoof Englishman because that reminds me of Terry-Thomas or Robert Morley, not that there’s anything wrong with them. But I still talk like I do and everyone else has moved with the times.”

He’s played opposite some of theatreland’s leading lights, including Lauren Bacall, Angela Lansbury, Rosemary Harris and Claudette Colbert.

Noel Coward’s comedy Hay Fever and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes are among his more recent stage roles.

There was also a cameo appearance in the much-delayed film version of HGTTG which featured Martin Freeman as Arthur Dent. Jones points out that opinions differ about the movie in which he played a hologram. “It had its moments,” he says tactfully.

“I felt a little cheated because they assured me my brief cameo appearance was in 3D. They had two cameras trained on me and in the film I just look fuzzy.”

• The Hitchhikers’ Guide To The Galaxy Radio Show – Live!: June 10, Newcastle Theatre Royal. Box Office 0844-8112121 and theatreroyal.co.uk

• July 5, York Grand Opera House. 0844- 8713025 and atgtickets.com/York