Stephen Fry A Life on Screen

If I was describing him to a police constable,

I would say, "Tall, physically imposing, funny..."

He shot my pigeon!

Ah, easy, sir.

"..big-hearted fellow."

HE GIGGLES Splendid.

I suppose the nose is the other distinguishing feature,

but I wouldn't want to harp on that.

Stephen's work ethic is extraordinary -

the books, the plays, the films,

you know, the television appearances,

the adverts, the voice-overs... It goes on and on and on.

I mean, he's everywhere, Stephen.

You cannot live your life without Stephen Fry.

He's respected because he can direct, he can write,

he can act - he can do it all.

The moments that always impact me the most,

when he does it, is erm...

are the moments that aren't scripted.

I would like to spank the...

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

..thank Spike Jonze.

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

Oh, thank God it wasn't "I'd like to thank William Jones."

Erm... LAUGHTER

One of the pleasures of presenting the BAFTAs -

and I never tire of this - is meeting heroes.

I love meeting film stars.

It's such a cheap thing to say but it's completely true.

I mean, to share a stage with Dustin Hoffman and Martin Scorsese

is a very exciting thing.

-That's it.

-Stephen!

Can you stand here, please?

MUSIC: He's So Fine by The Chiffons

# Doo lang, doo lang, doo lang

# Doo lang, doo lang

-# He's so fine

-Doo lang, doo lang, doo lang

-# I wish he were mine

-Doo lang, doo lang, doo lang... #

I was born in North London in Hampstead,

erm, about which I remember nothing.

Then a few years in Buckinghamshire,

but at the age of seven, my family moved to Norfolk.

It was agony to be so remote.

I envied all of the people that I was at school with who

lived in cities and towns, because they could go to cinemas

and milk bars and things like that.

The name of Uppingham is synonymous with its school.

It was founded in 1587

and it's one of the country's leading public schools.

It was there, at this school, at the age of about 14,

that I discovered a real love of drama, and indeed comedy.

There was a boy I...

We wrote sketches together, and we even wrote to the BBC...

asking if we could have employment as comedy writers,

which was a bit cheeky,

and, yeah, I played a witch in Macbeth

and a few other notable parts. HE LAUGHS

BELL CHIMES

Eye of newt and toe of frog,

wool of bat and tongue of dog.

I thought that, you know, because of the eye of newt

and all that sort of stuff that was in the cauldron of the witches,

erm, I should go to the butchers

and get a whole load of guts - a load of pig guts.

I decorated myself in intestines of pig

and put a whole load of others into the cauldron for us to pull out.

Hubble, bubble, toil and trouble,

fire burn and cauldron bubble!

The first night, it was sort of OK.

The second night, it really was beginning to pong quite appallingly.

By the third night, they'd all been taken away from me,

with severe frowns, and burnt,

and I think, to this day, the theatre basically stinks of offal,

and that was... That was unfortunate.

I was a very, very badly behaved boy.

Very badly behaved indeed.

I think, almost unquestionably, I would now be

diagnosed as having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

I was, you know, incredibly disruptive. Incredibly loud.

I couldn't concentrate. I couldn't settle.

I was a bad influence on others.

I was hyperactive.

Erm, all the things you think of as ADHD.

MUSIC: Theme from A Clockwork Orange by Wendy Carlos

I was about 14, 15,

and I got permission from my housemaster to go to London,

stay the Saturday night and Sunday night -

and Monday was the bank holiday - come back Monday evening.

So it was three days off from school.

I came back on the Thursday because I discovered cinema.

There was Cabaret. There was A Clockwork Orange.

In those days, you could sit in a cinema,

having paid for a ticket, and just stay in the same cinema

and watched the same film three or four times,

and I did that, and it got me expelled, however.

It was the straw that broke the camel's back,

as far as the headmaster and the housemaster at school were concerned,

and so I left.

I mean, everything about me was that of the...

the dropout, useless, arrogant teenager,

cos it was, you know,

"I've had it with education. I don't need it. Ugh."

And things got very black and bleak.

I stole a couple of credit cards

and went pretty mad around lots of different counties,

staying in hotels, buying clothes,

eating and drinking and being absurd,

and not knowing what I was going to do.

I mean, I kind of knew, somehow, I must get caught,

and indeed I did - in Swindon, of all unlikely places,

in a hotel there called the Hotel Wiltshire.

I went up to my room and there were two men inside the room,

and they said, "Wiltshire CID."

HE WHIMPERS Oh, dear. It all happened.

I had ten months inside the prison,

while the paperwork from seven different counties

caught up on this paper trail of credit cards.

Eventually, then, I appeared in front of the beak

and was given two years' probation, which was very fortunate,

erm, and I went back home, sober and unhappy with myself

erm, erm, daring almost not to look at my parents in the eye.

They were very kind but they said,

"Look, there's nothing we can do any more. It's up to you."

I said, "I understand that," and I went straight to Norwich,

and by incredible coincidence,

it was the second day of registration at Norwich City College.

I said, "Listen, if you let me,

"I will get A grades - A1s, with S levels -

"and I will get a scholarship to Cambridge."

MUSIC: Cathedral by Stefano Torossi & Claudio Gizzi

Stephen Fry from Booton in Norfolk, reading English.

The funny thing about a place like Cambridge is...

is that there's a strong sense that

you're in a place that is part of history,

part of the cultural landscape of your country,

and that you are not going to be worthy of it.

This was Wittgenstein and Bertrand Russell,

for goodness' sake - what are you doing here?

It's not the most perfect meritocracy in the world

and it certainly wasn't then.

There was a far higher proportion of people from expensive public schools,

but there were lots of people also not.

There was a friend of mine who said

he thought everyone was called Ashley, and he thought,

"Well, it's a very unlikely name for public school people."

Then he realised they were saying "actually".

IN POSH ACCENT: "Oh, hi. Oh, actually, erm...

"Actually, I've got a... Oh, yeah,

"I've got a supervision, actually. Ya, go on.

"Here, come round for some toast, actually."

Erm, you know, it was that sort of...

He just thought everyone was called Ashley. It's so funny.

And then, of course, there are other people there,

who just seem to be there because they went to Eton

and are good at rowing,

like Hugh Laurie, for example. No, I'm kidding.

Erm...

Rowing four, Hugh Laurie, one of the Etonians in the boat. He's 20.

He came to Cambridge to row, to row boats in the water -

something, you would think, only good for slaves and convicts,

but apparently it's a pleasurable thing to do.

Up and down. "Ugh, ugh." Why would you do that?

I went to the university to row.

That was my only plan.

It was only because I got ill - I had glandular fever

and I was not able to row in my first year,

so I settled on the Footlights,

and went into it, and had a... and just loved it.

I had a terrific time.

And Emma Thompson,

who I believe went on to do...

I don't know, I think she became...

I'm not sure what she did.

Emma had been in the Footlights in her first year.

She said, "I'm going to take you over to meet someone.

"I think you'll get on. He's the president."

And this was Hugh.

And we realised that we made each other laugh a lot.

I mean, we laughed, erm...

just dawn till dusk.

I don't know, I'm not even sure if we stopped at dusk.

We might even have gone on after dusk.

And I'd describe it as falling in love.

And it was an act of creative falling in love, comically falling in love.

A genuine connection, instant, with a remarkable man.

The tragedy of it is, he went to America,

and got a job in a hospital as a porter or something,

and now busks for a living. It's...

It's such a pity because he is actually rather talented.

He had a tremendous sort of gravity,

even at the age of whatever he was, 20.

He sort of seemed like a 60-year-old at the age of 20.

He wore tweed and, I think, stiff collars, and smoked a pipe.

I mean, ludicrously affected.

MUSIC: Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie

We went up to Edinburgh and there was a new award for a comedy show

in Edinburgh that year called the Perrier Award,

and we won it - the first one, the inaugural one -

and we thought, just, "Life doesn't get better."

And then, there's someone who introduces himself -

a legendary figure in BBC comedy called Dennis Main Wilson.

He said, "I'd like to do your show on the BBC."

So we're going, "What?"

We were just incredibly lucky.

Incredibly lucky.

LAUGHTER

Those sketches are quite unlike anything ever before or since,

and in many ways, in some ways,

it's the best thing they've ever done, I think, the Cellar Tapes.

What's the word, I wonder,

that Shakespeare decides to begin his sentence with here?

-Erm, "time" is the first word.

-Time.

Yeah.

Time.

Yeah.

And how does Shakespeare decide to spell it, Hugh?

T-I-M-E.

-T-I?

-M.

-M-E.

-Yeah.

And what sort of spelling of the word "time" is that?

Well, it's the ordinary spelling.

-It's the ordinary spelling, isn't it? It's the conventional spelling.

-Oh.

I know it must be sickening for people to hear it,

who want to make a career in comedy, and think,

"Well, it's just cos he went to private schools and Cambridge."

And I don't know. Maybe it is. I...

I can't think that's the only reason.

It seemed odd if it is the only reason, and I apologise. I can't...

I can't... I did my very best not ever to go to a public school

by getting expelled from three of them,

so I think I can in some way let myself off.

The famous review that -

probably one of the great Footlights reviews in history -

the Cellar Tapes of 1981,

was right in the middle of me producing Not The Nine O'Clock News,

and Stephen sent me a sketch out of the blue.

As a result of that,

we got to know each other,

and I got asked to be the script editor on a show called Alfresco,

that had the cast to dream of -

Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie,

Ben Elton, Emma Thompson,

Siobhan Redmond and Robbie Coltrane.

I mean, it is impossible to imagine a better comedy cast.

Erm, excuse me, do you think I could have a sip?

Who are you?

Why are you crawling out of our television set?

I'm part of a pilot programme from the first ever live cable channel.

So what do you want to watch?

Yes, what do you want to watch?

Oh, erm, the wrestling.

Wrestling? Right.

-Oh.

-Oh! Ah!

And it was pretty much - I won't say a disaster -

it was just a sort of damp nothing.

Didn't really work.

The main gate's here,

-and the British quarters are here, right?

-Uh-huh.

So what's to stop us dressing up as grand pianos

and just walking out through the main gate?

Meet Bertie the piano.

DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS

Dickens?

One, maybe two grand pianos, under cover of darkness,

cross-country, might stand a chance, but 60, speaking English?

Hell, Jerry would never swallow it.

I was overwhelmed by the talent of Ben Elton and his fructiferous pen.

Ben just...absolutely frightening.

Stephen and I would come in with a, sort of,

half a piece of paper and we'd mumble,

and Ben would open a briefcase, and just,

"This is what I did yesterday afternoon."

And he'd written, sort of,

I don't know, 100 pages of material.

By the time we did the second series of Alfresco,

Ben was writing, with Rik Mayall and Lise Mayer,

the second series of The Young Ones, and I...

We have an argument about this, Ben and I, all the time.

I distinctly remember having the idea of...

of the University Challenge episode,

in which Emma and Ben and I, and Hugh, appeared.

-Representing Footlights, we have Lord Monty...

-Hello.

..Lord Snot,

Miss Money Sterling,

-and Mr Kendal Mint Cake...

-Hi.

..and representing Scumbag, we have Mike...

-Hello.

-..Prick...

-What?

..Vyvyan and Neil.

Vegetable rights and peas.

LAUGHTER

But Ben remembers it as being his idea,

so I'm sure he's right, really,

but I do remember at least contributing to the idea,

so that was fun, working with Rik and Ade

and, you know, that whole bunch.

I'd seen Blackadder I,

which John Lloyd and Rowan had put together,

with, of course, Richard Curtis and Rowan writing the script,

and I'd really enjoyed it. You know, Peter Cook, who was one of my heroes

and, of course, Brian Blessed.

A toast to our triumph!

-Our triumph!

-Our triumph!

Then, when I heard there was going to be this second one,

I was really entranced.

Do I look absolutely divine and regal, and yet,

and at the same time, very pretty and rather accessible?

LAUGHTER

You are every jolly Jack Tar's dream, Majesty.

I thought as much.

And it just became magical, I think.

I mean, I can say that, cos my part was small enough for me

not to be arrogant in saying that.

Hugh and I, we'd done Blackadder,

and Richard, our agent, had said,

go and see one of the comedy executives at the BBC at the time.

"Go and see them, they're quite interested in

"maybe you doing a series."

And we thought, "Oh, what? Our day has gone.

"It's the day... This is the day of,

"you know, The Young Ones and Alexei Sayle."

And rightly, of course, you know,

and so we were all a bit kind of... HE GROANS

Well, I suppose, again, the BBC were,

they were just thinking, you know,

"We could take a chance on these two.

"They're probably not going to spend too much money."

Which I don't think we did. We had a few... We used a few wigs.

We ran through the wig store.

Our wig budget was substantial.

-LAUGHTER

-The parallel quantities D3 and D7

are inverted in the same direction,

giving us a resultant modular quantity of 0.567359.

Now, this should begin to give us some clues

-as to whether...

-I'm sorry.

Brian, I'm sorry. LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

What? What's happened?

You said...

You said 0.567359.

Oh, no, I didn't, did I?

-It should be 0.567395.

-395.

I don't believe it.

Oh, no!

Oh-ho-ho-ho!

I think Stephen would admit that he's not...

He's not... He's more of a verbal performer than a physical one.

I think he'd admit that.

Although, the sketch he did in Fry And Laurie of Dancercises

is one of the best things we ever did.

Let's now pretend that I am a prominent quantity surveyor

and Hugh is Geoffrey Cavendish, a client.

You'll see that I'm able to work,

and while I work,

able to build in all kinds of strengthening and toning movements.

There's nothing quite like what Stephen does in comedy -

with Hugh, particularly. That partnership is very odd.

They're sort of inventing a new form of conversation.

It slightly reminds one of Pete and Dud, in a way.

Morning, Geoffrey.

Morning, Dennis.

Do you have any quantities for me to survey this morning?

Erm, yes, I have got one quantity

I'd very much like you to survey, yes.

This quantity here?

That's the fellow.

LAUGHTER

All right, well, that's got that quantity surveyed.

Peter Cook and Dudley Moore were, of course,

sort of gods to us,

and Morecambe and Wise, and the Two Ronnies and...

We just grew up loving sketches.

We did have this idea that going away...

and lots of writers sort of try and do this,

they sort of persuade themselves that they're too easily distracted.

You know, and then, "We've got to go away.

"We've got to isolate ourselves."

We went to Crete. I don't know why. Cheap tickets or something.

I don't know why we went to Crete.

It was fantastic.

And we tried to live the good life, and we would, erm...

We would swim around the bay in the morning,

and then write all day, and then play backgammon all night,

and I amassed a fairly healthy lead.

In fact, I think I'm right in saying that

Stephen actually owes me £1.5 million.

That's nearly as much as he earns from an episode of House,

so that's, you know, it's quite important to him, that kind of thing.

I got £1.5 million worth of satisfaction

out of annoying him by beating him at backgammon.

There's one moment in Fry and Laurie where...

It's a Formula One sketch, which is making fun of the fact that

a lot of Formula One drivers, Grand Prix drivers,

are always moaning.

Michael, you must be very thrilled with that result.

Take us through the race.

-IN AUSTRIAN ACCENT:

-Yes, well, I was not very happy with the car,

and we had a lot of problems,

and the car was not so good, I think.

Shut up!

And you know, I just get more and more annoyed by this whingeing

from Formula One, and so I end up going "baf" like that.

You do a job that half of mankind would kill to be able to do,

and you can have sex with the other half as often as you like.

I just need to know if this makes you happy!

We had a lot of problems...

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

It really connected and you can see it. You can see it on-screen.

Hugh takes it well, but oh, I feel awful.

You could see me going...

MUSIC: Gonna Fly Now (Rocky Theme) by Bill Conti

And the next day, I came in early and went to the make-up chair

and got them to do an enormous bruise...

-And then I sort of...

-HE MUMBLES

It's fine. It's fine.

And he's, "Oh, my God, are you OK? Are you OK?"

No, no, it's fine.

I told you, I'm doing just fine.

Erm, which was very pleasing to do.

It's very difficult to sit next to Baldrick, because he's so smelly.

-This is Stephen Fry who plays General Melchett...

-Thank you, Tony.

..who is a complete, utter, vicious duffer.

Oh, now you're just trying to be lovely.

It's not true. It's not true. It's not true.

OK, opening titles.

Two, one...

HE SHOUTS

MUSIC: Theme from Blackadder by Howard Goodall

And one of the terrible moments of Blackadder IV for me

was the shooting of the title sequence.

I don't know if you remember it

but it takes place in a sort of parade ground, a square,

which was shot in Colchester at the Royal Anglian Regiment's barracks.

MARCHING BAND PLAYS

Stephen and Tim McInnerny were supposed to take the salute of

the soldiers marching past, and he was...

And we were in a parade ground, and he just looked slightly,

sort of, bare, unadorned,

and I said, "Well, they're in jodhpurs.

"Even if it's an infantry regiment, they could be on horseback.

"Why don't we get a couple of horses?"

And so they summoned up... They said, "How big are they?"

"Well, Stephen, he is, he's big. He's a big fellow."

So they had to get a big horse.

MUSIC: Romeo And Juliet by Prokofiev

Stephen's horse, I think was called something like...

called something like Fury,

and was just a fire-breathing monster of a thing.

This huge, black creature, who just had this...

"Anybody tries it..."

HORSE WHINNIES

And I'm on the horse, ready to take the salute,

and suddenly, the band starts,

and the horse goes "huh-huh-ha" like that.

HORSE NEIGHS

Absolutely vertical, I'm hanging on like this.

Fury did not care for the band.

Fury let his displeasure be known.

HORSE WHINNIES

The loudest noise, at this point, is not the horse neighing,

it's not the band -

it's Hugh screaming with laughter.

I thought I was going to die from laughing.

I can still make myself laugh thinking of it now,

because I'm cruel, you see?

I'm a very cruel person.

I'm not proud of that but there we are.

It's my nature.

So we tried that three times. Each time, it happens,

I managed to stay on, and then, in the end,

a little sad, kind of, podium is erected,

and we have to stand on it and do that,

and the horses are retired.

So it was a bit of a humiliation.

MARCHING BAND PLAYS

We had lunch in the mess, and all the officers, as it were -

the people playing the officers, so Stephen, Hugh, Tim and Rowan -

all sat at the table with the officers and had a lovely lunch,

and Baldrick had a stool and some baked beans

in an upside-down tin helmet to eat for lunch,

cos he was only a squaddie. It was great.

Are you looking forward to the big push?

No, sir, I'm absolutely terrified.

HE GIGGLES

The healthy humour of the honest Tommy.

Ha-ha! Don't worry, my boy.

If you should falter, remember that Captain Darling and I are behind you.

-About 35 miles behind you.

-LAUGHTER

Ben and Richard, the writers, didn't work in the rehearsal room.

They provided the first draft, as it were, the draft for the read-through,

with the story, and obviously, a lot of the dialogue and everything else,

'but we kind of tended to try and, you know, always up the game a bit.

'Stephen suited that thing that I was used to from radio

'and Not The Nine O'Clock News, is that the script is...'

is not, I'm afraid, treated like holy writ.

It is the beginning of a thing.

The good ones are left alone, and where they don't work,

'we kick it around a lot. It's not a common thing to do in a sitcom.

'It's much more like the way Monty Python work, for example.'

-Ring top bell.

-CHEERING

You know, he took a risk, I suppose,

because we could easily have fallen to pieces.

We very nearly did at times.

I mean, it just seemed like, well, we don't have a show now.

We're recording it tomorrow.

It doesn't... None of it makes any sense.

Stephen's contribution -

as with all of the cast, really,

who are all writers, generally, as well as performers -

is to come up with these fantastic gems.

Notably, Tim McInnerny's character in the fourth series was

originally called Captain Cartwright.

Stephen said, "So, why don't you call him

"something interesting, Richard, like Darling.

Then you could say, "Hello, Darling." And everybody laughed,

and Richard said, "Well, that's not a very good joke.

"That would just be funny once and then it would never be funny again."

And of course, it's one of the hallmarks of the fourth series.

You know, "Come on, Darling, we're leaving."

What the hell are you playing at, Darling?

Whenever we lost our bearings, it was like...

It was like finding a rope in the water.

"Well, at least we've got the Darling joke."

I know exactly what I'll say to her.

-Darling...

-Yes, sir?

LAUGHTER What?

Erm, I don't know, sir.

-Well, don't butt in.

-Sorry, sir.

-LAUGHTER

I want to make you happy, Darling.

I want to build a nest for your ten tiny toes.

I want to cover every inch of your gorgeous body in pepper

and then sneeze all over you.

Really, sir, I must protest!

What is the matter with you, Darling?

-Well, it's just all so sudden, sir.

-LAUGHTER

The kind of things we did in Blackadder,

like where I play a general,

is really like a schoolboy playing a teacher.

It's because I was 28 or whatever when we did that Blackadder,

which is not an age you'd expect to be a general,

so there's something automatically funny about being younger

than the age of the person you're portraying.

MUSIC: Theme from Jeeves And Wooster

Another moment where Hugh and I were allowed to stay together,

or maybe people just didn't believe we could ever do anything apart,

but we meet a man called Brian Eastman.

He had obtained the rights and then told us

about it before we saw the script.

I'd been addicted to PG Wodehouse

since I was ten years old. Absolutely addicted.

I'd written to him when I was 14

and had a letter back, which I still have.

"To Stephen Fry, all the best, PG Wodehouse."

Hugh also adored Wodehouse.

We talked on the way to the meeting with Brian

about whether or not we were going to say yes.

But then we...

Then we saw the first script, written by Clive Exton,

and I can remember going,

"Oh, my God, this guy is...

"He really knows how to do this."

I was sent by the agency, sir.

I was given to understand that you required a valet.

Very good, sir.

And then Hugh really put the clinching argument.

He said, "Well, yes, there is every possibility we'll ruin it,

"but he's obviously set on doing this, so if we don't ruin it,

"someone else is going to ruin it, and who would you rather ruin it?"

"It should be us. You're right.

"If anyone's going to ruin it, it should be us."

I'm afraid I couldn't bring myself to place the bet on Mr Little, sir.

What?

Jeeves, I distinctly told you...

Hmm...

You mean, we didn't lose the 100?

Indeed not, sir.

I took it into my head to put

what I believe is called in racing parlance "a bundle"

on Charlie Bembo at 15-to-1.

-HE SIGHS

-Jeeves, you're a wonder.

Thank you, sir.

The Aston Martin that we drove - a 1928, I think it was -

erm, the cocktail shakers, the glassware...

Even though there's a camera in your eye-line,

perhaps when you're doing that,

just handling these beautiful objects,

there's something just so marvellous.

You feel for a second you are actually in the world,

because everything in your eye-line -

if you exclude the lamps and camera,

and you just somehow very quickly do when you get used to these things -

is of the world,

and it's a beautiful world -

an Art Deco world of beautiful objects and clothes.

And it was a thrill to do.

It was... It was an immensely pleasurable experience.

Sort of too... Sort of embarrassingly pleasurable.

We should really have paid to do it.

I think we probably would have done, actually.

There's concern for the actor Stephen Fry,

who unexpectedly left the cast of a West End play three days

after it opened and hasn't been seen since Monday.

The play's author said Stephen Fry was

in a state of emotional turmoil due to overwork,

but his parents say they're not anxious about his disappearance

because he has a great zest for life.

I think I'd done a play in the West End for...

Which Simon Gray had written.

The Common Pursuit, with Rik Mayall and John Sessions.

And then he called me up and said that he had a play that he'd like me

to look at, about Blake, George Blake -

the spy who escaped from Wormwood Scrubs -

and that play was called Cell Mates.

Again, with Rik Mayall.

And that's where, if you like,

my luck began to fizzle out.

I was round his flat, off Jermyn Street,

and we were having a drink,

and he said, "Have you seen this article in the Evening Standard?"

And it was the most cruel piece.

Just a general think piece, an opinion piece, about,

"Who is this guy? Why does he think he's so good?

"You know, he's smug.

"There's nothing particularly clever about him. I don't find him funny."

That, I think, was what really tipped him over the edge,

so I did see him very, very low,

and it was only a few days later that the reviews came out

for Cell Mates, and that, really, that was the end of it.

I just couldn't take being in the play, or being in London.

I got in my car and drove to one of the Channel ports.

Folkestone, I think it was, yeah. And then to Zeebrugge.

I think that is one of those moments where

he ceased to become the driver of his own vehicle, as it were.

People often report, under situations of great stress,

report this kind of feeling of disconnection

from their own actions.

You know, "I woke up and I found myself"...

They use the phrase "waking up".

Instead of "I went there", they go, "I found myself there".

I found myself in Hamburg.

And I saw these rows of newspaper headlines,

"Fears For Fry" type thing.

They all are worried that I've committed suicide,

that's the awful thing, isn't it?

I can't believe I made people worry so much.

When you feel you can't go on, it's not just a phrase,

it's a reality.

I could not go on.

And I would have killed myself

if I didn't have the option of disappearing.

You know, it was not a great episode.

But which of us has a life that consists only of great episodes?

But I slowly got myself together with the help of

the best and dearest of parents and the best and dearest of friends.

It sort of all clarified. I saw doctors and things.

And it was perfectly clear

there WAS something a little amiss with the wiring upstairs.

Rick Mayall, I don't think, ever forgave him for that.

But another characteristic of Stephen is that,

if he does step over the mark, his apologies,

whether to the Twitterati, or to a television studio, are so fulsome

and so generous and so sincere that you forgive him instantly.

One of the greatest good fortunes I've had in my life is to be able

to be connected to the greatest heroes of my life.

Oscar Wilde, who meant everything to me,

who opened the doors of language to me,

and then, of course, made me examine the nature of my own sexuality,

and allowed me to be proud of it.

He was an incredible man who never ceases to astonish me...

And his range and his influence...

His greatness...

And so, to be asked to play him in a film?

Will you ever let me see the children again?

Of course.

But there must be one condition.

Oscar, you must never see Bosie again.

If I saw Bosie now, I'd kill him.

I got to see that Stephen, and he told me, that he was nervous.

He was nervous to be playing this...

To be playing a lead in a film, for a start.

Even though he's a wonderful actor, but I think he's very sensitive

to feeling nervous and feeling the stress of that kind of stuff.

And it's not something that he's necessarily been used to,

playing an out-and-out lead in a dramatic film.

And the fact he was playing Oscar Wilde,

who was one of his great idols,

and that is no easy feat, to play someone like Oscar Wilde.

I always wonder what she's thinking?

I expect it's about the baby.

OK, we missed the last line.

I met someone who knew him.

And apparently gave a very good impression.

HIGH-PITCHED VOICE: And he spoke like this!

But the fact is it would be so appalling to sit through

a film of someone speaking like that.

There's very little doubt that he did not have an Irish accent,

although he was born in Dublin.

He himself said that his Irish accent was one of the many things

he forgot at Oxford.

And, you know...

IRISH ACCENT: He's not talkin' loik dis, ye know?

It would be rather annoying, because I don't do it well enough.

They were honest with me.

They said, "Look, you bailed out of a West End production,

"so insurance companies are going to want to know

"that you're reliable if you're cast in the film.

"Plus it may well be that the money just won't buy you as Oscar Wilde.

"They may want a proper film star."

I said, "I understand completely, of course I understand.

"And if they want to...

"I'll pay extra for the insurance if it is extra, or whatever."

I didn't want to sound too desperate,

but I did want to show that I was very, very willing

to undergo any humiliation in order to play the part.

And fortunately, there wasn't much humiliation.

There was a Japanese woman who represented a film fund.

I came in, and we talked about Wilde as seriously as possible.

And I played down anything vulgar or cheap about the Oscar Wilde story.

And she said, "Oh, very good, yes. Nice to talk to you. Very good.

"Before you go, one question I need to ask -

"how much bumfuck in movie?"

Well! They might've warned me that question was coming!

So I said, "Just as much as is necessary, and no more."

Wonderful!

Do I understand that even a young boy you might pick up in the street

would be a pleasing companion?

I would talk to a street Arab with pleasure, if he would talk to me.

-And take him to your rooms?

-Yes.

And then commit improprieties with him!

CROWD GASPS

Certainly not.

The first time the thought had even crossed my mind,

I was in a restaurant called Joe Allen's,

which is a famous theatrical haunt in Covent Garden.

And I had gone to the loo, and I was washing my hands or something,

and a voice behind me said,

"You know, you should play Oscar Wilde one day."

And it was Alan Bennett!

And I just looked at my hair and I thought, well, yes!

The fact that the physical resemblance is uncanny.

Not just the physical resemblance,

but his whole sort of demeanour seemed to be Wildean.

It was as if he was...

He was some sort of weird recreation of this, of Oscar.

Give a man a mask and he'll tell you the truth.

Have we had enough of this?

Shall we go and have dinner somewhere?

There are certain indelible things that

I will never forget about my relationship with Stephen,

one of which is that I've had sex with him.

I think, actually, it was my first sex scene I ever did.

It was with Stephen.

I was a lot more nervous than he was.

Michael did the work.

Revealed the flesh far more than I did!

I was just a bit of kissing...

But he was charming. He was very, very good.

There has to be a first time for everything, Oscar.

There was a moment of seduction where my character seduces him.

I remember having to drop my trousers,

and it was just so ridiculous.

And so absurd, really.

But it broke the ice, I think.

I feel...

Like a city that's been under siege for 20 years.

HE GIGGLES

And suddenly the gates are thrown open.

The citizens come pouring out.

You know, filming can be awful.

Sometimes you've got to grit your teeth and make love to Michael Sheen

and Ioan Gruffudd and Jude Law.

And just have done with it.

You've just got to do it.

Huh.

And action!

FLAPPER MUSIC

I had been asked on a few occasions

whether I'd consider directing a film.

And I always felt that if you were going to direct a film,

given how much time it took,

that it better be something that really meant something to you.

And so the first project that really did make me think,

"I could see myself giving up 18 months,

"two years of my life to this",

was Vile Bodies, the novel by Evelyn Waugh.

Cut. Thank you!

I was really, really excited about the idea of him directing this.

It just seemed to make such sense.

I remember, when we were working on Wilde, he would always ask about, "What's the lens?"

He's fascinated by the technical aspects of it as well.

The thing he was most concerned about was directing actors.

It was almost rude of him, he felt,

to give you notes or give you direction.

And I know that gave him a lot of anxiety.

Do you think he could help us by not standing up quite so suddenly?

-Right, yes.

-I mean, don't do a false, movie actor's slow rise,

but not quite such a spring would be fine.

I'm worried, as a director, my problem is that I'm just too

thrilled with everything that happens. "That's wonderful!"

There was a rather silly moment where, in a long scene

involving quite a few people, about five people...

That's Mr Whatsisname,

and, over there in the corner, that's the Major.

And that's an American judge,

and there's the King of Pomerania.

Anatolia, actually.

But, alas, no longer.

And there was a line of them at the end, and I said "cut!",

and Simon Callow, who was fabulous in the film,

and he was at the end of this line...

And I went down the line saying,

"Wonderful, fantastic, marvellous, miraculous, unbelievable!

And Simon said, "I don't think you want to tell an actor that

"he's just been unbelievable."

He was very good about being specific about certain

pronunciations of certain things.

Or the rules, the etiquette, the code of that world.

He was brilliant at that.

And that helps a lot, as an actor, I think.

I come from a town - Port Talbot, in South Wales -

that's very different to the world of Bright Young Things,

so I'm never quite sure about how that kind of stuff works.

So it makes you feel a lot more confident when you've got

someone like Stephen who can really support you in all that.

What strange ancestors you have, Jane. All so serious-looking.

It's as if they're gazing into my soul

and finding something rather horrid.

Well, they probably are.

The book, Vile Bodies, was dedicated to Mr and Mrs Bryan Guinness.

But that's actually Diana Mitford, one of the famous Mitford sisters.

But her sister, Deborah Mitford, Debo, as she's known,

married the Duke of Devonshire.

You're thinking, "Why are you telling me this, Stephen?"

I cheekily called her up and said,

"Look, you knew the world of these Bright Young Things."

"Yes, dear, yes?"

I said, "Can I bring my actors to come and see you?

"Because they're very, very good,

"but they're sort of doing a middle-class 1920s accent."

She said, "Of course, dear, of course."

She said, "I've made a few notes," she was so wonderful,

"I suppose I would say this, that the

"middle classes, if they were surprised, they would say 'Oh!'

"You see? One short, sharp syllable.

"Whereas we'd say, well, at least three syllables, 'Oh-ooh-oooh!'

And they all, of course...

That's just the sort of thing an actor or actress likes to hear.

They can get their fingers into that.

"Oh-ooh-oooh." Isn't that marvellous?!

# I want to be in America

# OK by me in America

# Everything free in America

# For a small fee in America. #

The format for Stephen Fry In America was my idea,

that of visiting every state.

And it occurred to me, with almost a shock, if you like,

that I'd never seen a programme which tackled America

as what it is, a federation of states.

I thought it'd be worth visiting every state.

There are 50 of them - it's a nice round number.

That taxi actually came from Chicago.

From a fish and chip restaurant in Chicago.

And it was used to drive customers if they were drunk.

You know, a fish and chip restaurant in Chicago will serve wine

and beer, obviously. Unlike the ones in England.

It was a courtesy car, I think is the phrase.

I drive one around London,

and it seemed like a good kind of badge to have in the middle

of the Wild West or the swamps of the Everglades, or whatever.

America is a phenomenally exciting place

and I think a lot of British people

have that sense of America's myth in them,

and they really envy me,

the idea of driving through all the states. Especially men.

Men have a particular obsession with driving through America.

Probably in a Mustang, I don't know what it is.

Good boy.

-No, don't do that to me.

-You're on you own! Have fun!

Don't do that to me.

He's not going to jump over the fence, is he?

Good boy.

No, no, whoa!

Calm down, whoa!

Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!

Whoa! Whoa!

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Whoa! Whoa.

Stephen, I don't know what to tell you,

I apologise, this has never happened before.

Let me tell you, it's always happened with me.

Whenever I've been on a horse, the horse's owner goes,

"That's strange, he's never done that before."

Oh, well, we got it.

Never, ever again.

Never, you understand?

I've had a period now of about 10, 15 years nearly

of making documentaries.

Which is something I never thought I would do,

and I've really enjoyed that.

Both travelogues of the more traditional type...

Hey, hello!

..and ones like the manic depression and me,

and the one about Aids I did, and various other subjects that are,

if you like, a little more serious, a little more personal.

I'm starting in Uganda, a country that seems to be

going backwards in its treatment of gay people.

Since 2009, its government has been considering passing a new law

which proposes a death penalty for homosexuals.

It is not permissible in Uganda for single sex relationship. Finished!

And if you're advocating that, I'm sorry,

I will treat you as a destructor of Uganda's ideologies.

Homosexuality is fantastic, you should try it. It's really good fun.

-I will arrest you, I will arrest you.

-I'm not having sex with people!

And I wouldn't want someone who wasn't gay to have it.

But if you are gay, it's wonderful.

Ross Wilson, a BBC producer who came to see me,

and we talked about making two films for the BBC

about the nature of manic depression/bipolar disorder.

It's an odd way to recover from a particularly bad episode,

then to throw yourself into talking about it.

And one thing I never want to be, I hope,

is a professional mad person and professional bipolar disorder figure.

Did you regard it as a very serious step, to section people?

I think it's a hugely serious step to section people.

What they don't have is insight into their illness and behaviour.

And that's obviously why sections were originally invented.

To be able to keep someone safe when their natural instinct,

because of their illness, would not be to do it themselves.

So the vast majority of people you talk to who have been

sectioned will say to you, "I've got absolutely no idea

"why I was sectioned, I was perfectly all right."

And then you find out they were hanging out of a window

by one hand, naked.

What the hell do we do, you know?

For him to reveal the things that are most troubling for him,

that have given him a lot of difficulty in his life,

and to be honest and vulnerable and open about that,

that has connected with people, and he's done that time and time again.

Aside from all the other wonderful qualities he has.

And that, I think, is what makes him truly remarkable.

Kingdom was a delight to make, a wonderful group of actors

coming up to Norfolk to be part of our little world over three series.

It has a particular vibe, Norfolk,

and that, of course, is where Stephen is from.

We set out, with Kingdom, to make, yes, absolutely,

unapologetic, cosy, Sunday-evening television.

But also, there are a lot of juxtapositions between cosiness

and real terror and weirdness.

Mr Snell, you're an aggravating nuisance, a tiresome pedant,

and a complete genius.

-That land cannot be developed without your permission.

-I know!

I played Beatrice Kingdom, his mad, borderline personality sister.

-Where is the marmalade?

-Orange or grapefruit?

-Grapefruit.

Top right, second shelf, third from the left.

To see her being this really off-the-scale kind of a creature

was truly wonderful.

And yet, you know, not far off a lot of people's experiences.

Peter, she's taped my chair to the desk!

-Oh, dear.

-Any suggestions?

Erm...

Oh, look, what does this say?

Scissors, apparently. Could try those?

He has an enormous energy, and an enormous presence on set.

He's just incredibly entertaining to be around. You're never bored.

He's an amazing raconteur, always telling stories,

doing 150,000 things at once, on his iPhone...

To be without coverage in the 21st-century is just... I don't know.

He's an incredibly vivacious, gregarious man. Very entertaining.

If I went back in time and saw my little 11-year-old self

pounding away on a bicycle, and said,

"Do you know, in a few years' time,

"you'll be in a flash convertible car with a film crew and a camera,

"shooting down on you as you drive along", I would wet myself.

And I would also, of course, fail to believe it.

John Lloyd, with whom I'd had a long and happy relationship

since leaving university, really.

Since writing that first little sketch for Not The Nine O'Clock News

and then all the way through the Blackadders...

He took me to lunch and he laid out this idea of a series.

Stephen wasn't designed as the host of QI,

he was meant to be captain of the clever team,

as Alan Davies was captain of the ignorant team,

and the nice Mr Palin, Michael Palin in the middle.

When Mike turned it down, because he didn't think

he was clever enough, and because he was tired after spending months

in the Sahara, I honestly thought that was the end of the programme.

I thought it wouldn't work if it wasn't like that.

So I kind of begged Stephen if he would stand in just for the pilot.

I said, "No, no, I'd like to do anything except that."

No, because that's the boring bit, you're the schoolmaster,

and I would like to be one of the...

He said, "Just for the pilot."

First question, who or what is Bobo Fing?

-Erm...

-WHISTLE

BELL AND HORN Bill...

Pigeon!

The answer is a language spoken in Mali,

where 10,000 people are fluent in Bobo Fing.

Not to be confused with Burkina Faso, where they speak just Bobo.

Or Tanzania where more than ten million people speak Gogo.

Within five minutes of him starting the show,

you could see this is the job he was born to do.

Stephen showed in the pilot that he would be fantastic.

In 1992, the French government relaxed their ruling on the

formal list of what French children could be legally christened.

Jean-Pierre, Jean-Michel, Marie-Claire, Jean-Marie,

Tintin, Babar, Comte de Frou Frou...

And the following year, after relaxing these laws,

the most popular name for a baby French boy was Kevin.

And then, about a week later, Lloydy, John Lloyd rings me up.

And says, "The BBC are thrilled with it,

"they would like to make a series."

I said, "Hooray!"

"As long as you're the chairman."

"Oh..."

So, fair enough.

I was fighting something that shouldn't have been fought.

It was natural for me to be the chairman, I think.

I have that awful, pompous, chairmany sort of manner.

And where better to start than right at the beginning,

with a round of questions on Adam and Eve?

Underneath all his scabrous wit,

he's such an enthusiast. He loves stuff.

As a child, I did embarrassingly collect facts

in a very QI sort of way.

And I probably would have loved, at least,

I know I would have loved QI, when I was a child.

I learned whole swathes of the Guinness Book Of Records.

I mean, how utterly weird and wrong is that?

Who invented, ladies and gentlemen, the telephone?

I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say it.

It was Antonio Meucci, Italian-born scientist,

invented the telephone.

He'd perfected it by 1871, couldn't afford the patent...

But do you know what happened?

It was being assessed for a patent in the offices of Western Union,

and it fell into the hands of a young, Scottish engineer

-called Alexander Graham Bell.

-"I am nicking that!"

-Boo!

And he grabbed the chance and patented it in his own name.

Meucci took him to court, but died before the judgment was given,

leaving Bell to claim his place in history.

-What do we say to Alexander Graham Bell?

-You

-BEEP.

-Boo!

APPLAUSE

We cannot underestimate how he just holds the whole thing together.

I've been on lots of panel shows. I've sat in a lot of studios,

often for hours, thinking, "Is this ever going to end?"

8 Out Of 10 Cats.

Stephen makes the whole thing like an evening round his house, somehow.

He's so conscious, he would never want anyone to not have their

glass filled or be bored, you know?

-Would you like a chocolate ant?

-I'll suck it.

-Would you?

-No!

-Are you going to risk any one of these?

-I'll have a look at them.

If I had a chocolate ant, would you have one?

I'll let you go first.

-I've eaten it.

-Yeah, I'm not really bothered, to be honest with you.

The time when he really lost it

was when we were doing a thing about the Parthenon.

They say of the Acrop...Acropolis, where the Parthenon is...

Burble-bee-ba-ba-doo.

-They say of the Acropolis, where the Parthenon is...

-Are those the magic words?

They say of the Acropolis, where the Parthenon is, that they...

APPLAUSE

Turns out, they didn't say anything at all.

He couldn't say it. He kept stumbling over his words.

Which is most unlike him. Normally we get to the end of a recording,

and there may be one thing, or two things for pickups.

He really doesn't fluff.

And he kept stumbling over his words, and then we all

joined in in mocking him and mimicking him,

and turned it into a song.

They say of the Acropolis, where the Parthenon is...

-# Theeeyyyy say of the Acropolis

-Everyone!

# Where the Parthenon is

-ALL:

-# They say of the Acropolis

# Where the Parthenon is

# They say of the Acropolis

# Where the Parthenon is

# They say of the Acropolis

# Where the Parthenon iiiissss

# They say of the Acropolis

-# Where the Parthenon is. #

-Fight, fight, fight, fight!

Bloody hell, Stephen.

This better be good!

QI is by far and away the happiest show on television in any genre,

I guarantee you. People come, they stay.

Except Stephen, sadly,

who is retiring halfway through the alphabet, after the M series.

He would never have wanted any fuss.

If there was a hint of a little bit of fuss

about the fact that he's leaving...

if we'd invited Hugh Laurie or somebody like that,

he would've gone, "Oh, God!",

and run for the hills.

If he was going to leave, it was always going to be

in the quietest possible way, from a distance, by e-mail.

So I was saddened, but not surprised, really.

I felt, in recent years, it's been a bit of a squeeze on the show,

and we have to compact the recordings,

we have to do three shows in a 24-hour period each week.

And it's pretty tough going, it's not fun like it used to be.

# I never thought

# One day, you'd be gone. #

Well, I'm leaving QI, really, because I honestly think 13 years is enough.

It's been incredibly good fun,

I wouldn't want to feel stale or for it to go sour on me

in that sort of way where I feel I'm treading water or repeating myself.

And I do think it's a good enough idea to have another host,

and Sandi Toksvig couldn't be a better choice.

So I'm very happy for the show to go on without me, really,

and find other things to do.

It's been a very odd life in terms of the mixtures.

A very fortunate one, really, but I also would hate to stop acting.

I love film acting and I love acting in TV dramas and things. And writing.

So I hope to continue to write

and enjoy the pleasures of age that come to an actor when he

can play characters who don't have to worry about how they look.

What is the meaning of this?!

We caught them stealing weapons, Sire.

Ah, enemies of the state, eh?

I think people only take someone to their hearts in the way

that our nation has taken someone like Stephen to their hearts,

if they believe that that person is really giving

something of themselves and being genuine.

He likes people. He likes funny people.

Yes.

And if you get a text from him or an e-mail from him,

it's always got a little hint of humour.

This kind of energy about him, he's quite a life force.

# Row, row, row your punt

# Gently down the stream!

# Belts off, trousers down

# Isn't life a scream? #

Let's address the facts of the case.

Stephen is immensely clever, immensely funny and immensely kind.

Those three things are really enough to take the day.

If... I don't play gin rummy, but I imagine

if you had those three cards in your hand...

you go "gin!", don't you?

Ladies and gentlemen, what a night, what a lady, what a knight.

I join with Meryl Streep in wanting to spank you all.

It only remains for me to add something obscene

and offensive that can't be edited out.

You've being kind, you've been delightfully cartilaginous,

and you will never understand how much I love you.

Good night, thank you very much. APPLAUSE