I’m an occasional listener to Stephen Fry’s excellent podcasts, and reader of his blog. I’ve always admired Fry. He’s a Renaissance man–a consummate orator, a great essayist, a skilled actor and he’s got one of the largest functional vocabularies I’ve ever heard. He brings a joyful curiosity and wit to every project on which he works.
One recent project is Stephen Fry in America. It’s a six-part BBC series in which Fry visits every one of the US’s fifty states. All six parts were scheduled in one day over the Christmas break, and I recorded them all. They’re quite enjoyable–it’s always entertaining to see the familiar through a foreigner’s eyes. I’m also learning the odd fact about US geography and history. They’re lightweight fare, but they’re beautifully shot and Fry makes a charismatic host. Here’s a promo:
In writing this post, I was reminded of two other projects involving Stephen Fry. He hosts a very British game show called QI, which stands for ‘Quite Interesting’. To call it a game show is a bit generous, as it’s really just a framework for five funny people to be funny. Here’s an example:
Fry was also involved in Last Chance to See, following in the footsteps of Douglas Adams’s best book of the same name. He accompanies Mark Carwardine, Douglas’s co-author, to re-visit six critically endangered species around the globe. My favourite, by far, is the kakapo. Here’s an enormously funny moment from Fry and Carwardine’s encounter with one of these very odd birds:
Desperate for something to listen to for the trip back to Victoria, I subscribed to Stephen Fry’s ‘Podgrams’ podcast. I figured that anything the erudite and charming Fry did would be worth listening to. And I wasn’t disappointed.
His second episode has a lengthy but highly entertaining rant explaining how and why he hates to dance. I don’t feel quite so passionate about the topic, but I sympathize.
I don’t like to dance either. There’s a scene in the season one of Dexter, where Dexter, his girlfriend, his sister and her boyfriend are cleaning out his father’s home. Somebody puts on an old record, and people start dancing. Everyone except Dexter, the emotionless sociopath. He stands, arms crossed, with a look of bewildered awkwardness that felt so familiar.
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Via Neatorama, I recently learned about QI (which stands for ‘quite interesting’). It’s a quiz show that combines all the best things about British television: the BBC, bracing intellectualism and Stephen Fry. Here’s the first ten minutes of the very first episode, from way back in 2003:
Recurring guest Alan Davies, in particular, is enormously funny. We don’t really have the ‘comedy quiz show’ in North America, but it seemed to be a staple of British TV when I lived in Ireland. The basic formula involves getting four or five smart, funny men together on a goofy sound stage and letting them make jokes at each other.