His role as Arthur Dent's friend – and rescuer, when Earth is unexpectedly demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass at the start of the story – is often expository, as Ford is an experienced galactic hitchhiker[1] and explains that he is actually a journalist, a field researcher for the titular Guide itself, and not an out-of-work actor from Guildford as he had claimed.
As well as rescuing Arthur, he introduces him to the other major characters – such as Zaphod, Trillian and Marvin the Paranoid Android – and to numerous mind-boggling concepts, from "teasers" (an explanation of UFO sightings on Earth) to the extraordinary usefulness of towels.
Although his heart is in the right place and he is shown to be highly intelligent, resourceful and even brave, Ford is essentially a dilettante when it comes to causes such as the search for the question to the ultimate answer of "life, the universe and everything".
Ford carries the essential items of his profession in a leather satchel, hiding them under copies of play scripts in keeping with his public persona as an actor in search of work.
Among the contents are his copy of the Guide; an Electronic Thumb, which he uses to signal passing spaceships in an attempt to hitch a ride; a Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic, which monitors interstellar activity and alerts him to ships' proximity and origin; and a bath towel from Marks and Spencer.
[5] He had originally planned to spend a week on Earth doing research for the Guide, but wound up being stranded there for 15 years prior to helping Arthur escape the planet when the Vogons demolish it.
The episode ends with a selection of possible outcomes for this last-second-teleportation, as the "unstable" nature of the section of galaxy Earth is in means that there are a variety of realities that the characters could find themselves in.
Richard Hope played Ford in the first stage production of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with Ken Campbell’s The Science Fiction Theatre of Liverpool in May 1979 at the Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) in London.