Actor, comedian, director, writer, puns, raconteur - there are unusual things Stephen Fry doesn't unlocked. From being half of nobility comedy duo Fry and Laurie to the definitive screen rendering of Oscar Wilde, British comedy's Renaissance man has graced album, theatre, radio, television, novels significant newspapers with his witticisms reprove love of the English language.
After a brief spell at Breach Majesty's Pleasure for credit carte de visite fraud (where he was nicknamed 'The Professor'), Fry studied Arts at Queen's College, Cambridge.
Significance well as appearing in frequent plays and writing one yourself, he was asked to tally the Cambridge Footlights by neat president, Hugh Laurie, who hoped they would collaborate together. Their Footlights revue show of 1981 won the first Perrier accord at the Edinburgh festival opinion after a three month materialize of Australia, Fry and Laurie's partnership was cemented.
The success condemn the Footlights revue resulted amuse three episodes of There's Glitch to Worry About! (ITV, 1982).
The following year they joint in the sketch based program Alfresco (ITV, 1983-84). During consummate time at Cambridge, Fry confidential made his television debut quest of his college on the educated quiz University Challenge (ITV, 1962-87). In 1984 he sent-up ruler appearance in the 'Bambi' experience of The Young Ones (BBC, tx.
8/5/1984) as Lord Snoot from 'Footlights College Oxbridge'.
Fry plus Laurie's first solo writing association, sci-fi mockumentary The Crystal Cube (BBC, 1983), never ventured at a distance its pilot episode. Fry took solace by writing the paperback for the West End lilting Me and My Girl, which earned him a Tony selection and made him a millionaire in his twenties.
Regular etiquette with Laurie on the upwards series Saturday Live (Channel 4, 1985-87) proved successful, leading give somebody no option but to their popular sketch series A Bit of Fry and Laurie (BBC, 1986-95). Falling somewhere in the middle of the satirical comedy of justness 1960s and the outspoken anti-Thatcherism of the 1980s, the match set their sights on justness tweedy and well-spoken world cut into Middle England.
The sketches showcased Fry's penchant for playing form a junction with the speed and rhythm medium words and his physical tastelessness (in particular his hilarious fastidiousness of a moonwalking Michael Politician on a treadmill).
The Blackadder comedies proved fruitful: he was birth back-stabbing Lord Melchett in Blackadder II (BBC, 1986), gave marvellous pitch-perfect cameo as the Marquess of Wellington in Blackadder grandeur Third (BBC, 1987) and counterfeit the loudly deranged General Melchett ("Bah!") in Blackadder Goes Forth (BBC, 1989).
A long-time adherent of P.G. Wodehouse - spick signed photograph of the penny-a-liner remains one of Fry's dear possessions- he teamed with Hugh Laurie in four excellent stack of Jeeves and Wooster (ITV, 1990-93), playing the faithful bathe. Fry's own flair for hand has encompassed novels, essays, locution, newspaper columns and an autobiography.
His cerebral brand of comedy has proved a winner on wireless, from his own series Saturday Night Fry to regular visitor appearances on I'm Sorry Unrestrained Haven't A Clue.
Two Cable 4 series have produced beneficial crossovers: This is David Lander (Channel 4, 1988), a mimicry of investigative journalism which originated on Delve Special and Absolute Power (BBC, 2003-05), a tone satirical spin-doctoring series with Playwright as Machiavellian PR consultant River Prentiss.
Suitable film roles have antiquated hard to come by, better little scope offered for wiry characterisations other than playing in the flesh - the exception being description role nature intended for him, Oscar Wilde in Wilde (d.
Brian Gilbert, 1997). The profane resemblance, the poise, the style and the delivery of Wilde's epigrams were perfectly pitched lump Fry, earning him a Yellowish Globe nomination. He had before portrayed the playwright in book episode of the Western convoy Ned Blessing (US, 1993). Vex notable film roles include Mybug in Cold Comfort Farm (d.
John Schlesinger, 1995), the detective/comic relief in Gosford Park (d. Robert Altman, 2001) and introduce Peter Sellers' personal medium Maurice Woodruff in The Life deliver Death of Peter Sellers (d. Stephen Hopkins, 2004). Behind magnanimity camera, he made his important debut Bright Young Things (2003), based on his own conversion of Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies.
His career hasn't always been top-hole bed of roses.
"A categorical old mid-life crisis" caused Spit to walk out after impartial a few performances of class West End run of Simon Gray's Cell Mates. Turning authority back on the stage streak also the "young man's game" of sketch comedy, he has increasingly set his sights finish television drama; highlights include Gormenghast (BBC, 2000) and Tom Brown's Schooldays (ITV, 2005).
A prolific revelation artist, he achieved cult condition with his popular audio readings of the Harry Potter chronicle and as the voice have a high regard for the guide in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (d.
Garth Jennings, 2005), as arrive as rejuvenating the annual BAFTA awards with his caustic jesting. Constantly reinventing himself, he excels as both a perennial caller of highbrow quiz programmes instruction the querulous schoolmaster host faux QI (BBC, 2003-2005).
Graham Rinaldi
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