When planet Earth is demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass by an unpleasant bureaucratic alien race known as the Vogons, hapless Englishman Arthur Dent narrowly escapes thanks to his best friend Ford Prefect, a Betelgeusian galactic hitch-hiker and contributing writer for the titular guide, who is not an out-of-work actor from Guildford as he had hitherto claimed.
Arthur, still in his dressing gown, is subsequently dragged from one crisis to the next on a series of misadventures across the galaxy.
