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Joining the Footlights while at Cambridge, Adams' talent was noticed in a 1974 TV version of the Footlights Revue by Graham Chapman.

The pair began a brief writing partnership and Adams made occasional contributions as writer and performer in Monty Python’s Flying Circus (debuting, perhaps prophetically, in episode 42).

He famously recounted how the inspiration for Hitchhiker's… struck while he was lying drunk in a field in Austria and in 1977 the 91¸£ÀûÉç commissioned a first radio series.

After its success Adams turned to writing novels, producing a trilogy of Hitchhiker's novels (eventually in five parts) and a fondly remembered TV adaptation in 1981, followed up by spin-offs including innovative computer games and even a bath towel.

A renowned sci-fi fan and technophile, Adams also wrote and script-edited episodes of Doctor Who as well as creating the Dirk Gently book series and collaborating with John Lloyd on humorous dictionary The Meaning of Liff.Ìý

In 2005, new 91¸£ÀûÉç radio adaptations of the final two Hitchhiker’s books were broadcast and Adams' long-cherished dream of a movie adaptation was finally realised, but sadly not before the author's premature death in 2001, aged 49.

A true and rare original, he left behind an entire universe of his own creation, with even a restaurant at the end of it.Ìý