A radio adaptation of "Life, the Universe and Everything" was recorded in 2003 under the guidance of Dirk Maggs, starring the surviving members of the cast of the original "Hitchhiker's" radio series. Adams himself, at his own suggestion, makes a cameo appearance; due to his death before production began on the series, this was achieved by sampling his character's dialogue from an audio book of the novel read by Adams that was published in the 1990s. The radio adaptation debuted on BBC Radio 4 in September 2004.