with the most unimaginably anal restrictions on access. They basically didn't want us there and took the best part of two weeks to say so...We eventually settled upon a brand new building at the Bristol-Bath Science Park where they could not have been more helpful. All this on a BBC4 budget." Music The series's soundtrack was composed by Daniel Pemberton. In creating the distinctive sound for the main titles and incidental music, Pemberton made use of a Marxophone, a zither which is a cross between a hammered dulcimer and a piano. These instruments were produced in America between 1927 and 1972. The soundtrack also mixes in a harpsichord, synth, bass guitar and drums. A soundtrack album featuring music from the series was released by 1812 Recordings on 5 March 2012. Plot Dirk Gently (real name Svlad Cjelli) operates a Holistic Detective Agency based on the "fundamental interconnectedness of all things". To solve cases, Dirk relies on random chance methods for example "Zen navigation" (following people or vehicles who look like they know where they are going, in the hope that while you might not get to where you were originally headed, you might still end up somewhere you needed to be, even if you didn't originally know you needed to be there.) or throwing a dart at a board of words to select the direction of his detection. By following up on apparently random occurrences and whims, Dirk discovers connections between seemingly unrelated cases and often produces surprising results. He claims that he follows the principles of quantum mechanics (although it is implied when he speaks to an expert in these fields that he doesn't really understand them); most people suspect he is just a conman and he rarely gets paid by clients and is therefore in almost permanent financial difficulty. In the pilot episode, Dirk bumps into a former university friend, Richard MacDuff, who has been made redundant from a job at an electricity board, and takes on a case for him. During the course of his investigation, Dirk hypnotises MacDuff and persuades him into investing his £20,000 redundancy money in his failing detective agency. MacDuff therefore becomes Dirk's partner in the business and "assistant" on investigations. Richard MacDuff's girlfriend, Dr Susan Harmison, was also at university with the pair and is deeply sceptical about Dirk's abilities. Also present at the Agency is Dirk's receptionist Janice Pearce, whom Dirk