Stephen Fry: 50 not out

[Steve Crook]

A great documentary about "National treasure", Stephen Fry on his 50th birthday. Shown on BBC4 but watch out for repeats on BBC4 or BBC2.



Part of the Stephen Fry weekend where he introduces some of his finest work and some of his favourites by other people



BBC Four



They're showing his documentary The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive on Tuesday & Wednesday next week. If you didn't catch it before, or even if you did, do try to watch it.



Steve

[Cheeky Bob]

name='Steve Crook']A great documentary about "National treasure", Stephen Fry on his 50th birthday. Shown on BBC4 but watch out for repeats on BBC4 or BBC2.

...and keep a cloth handy to wipe your telly after the luvvies have finished gushing.



That wasn't a documentary, it was a gaggle of Fry's best mates telling him repeatedly how wonderful he was, interspersed with a lot of clips. Those were fun, but at least half the blather could have been cut - I know it was probably a major coup to get Prince Charles involved, but did he say anything wasn't utterly banal and obvious?



That said, tonight's programme looks much more promising, largely because it's presented by Fry himself.

[Fareham_Bee]

Was just idly channel hopping and came across the announcer saying QI was on next and stayed with it until I turned over to the Sheild at eleven.



Made me laugh out loud a lot and under current circumstances that isn't an easy task!



Someone described how his disappearance wasn't trivialised because he is genuinely loved by the public, I thought that was true and summed up how likable he is.



Will never forget his Countdown sketch with the letters b o l o l c k s and dictionary corner getting the word sloblocks from it.

[penfold]

name='Cheeky Bob']I know it was probably a major coup to get Prince Charles involved, but did he say anything wasn't utterly banal and obvious?

Does he ever????

[Cheeky Bob]

name='Fareham_Bee']Will never forget his Countdown sketch with the letters b o l o l c k s and dictionary corner getting the word sloblocks from it.

There's a lovely postscript to that - in some ad campaign or trailer or suchlike, a load of celebrities told us what their favourite word was, and Richard Whiteley's was 'Sloblock'.



Which I thought was really sweet - and it also reminded me of this story, which I spotted in the Guardian last week:

Next month, Higgins reprises his roles in the National Theatre of Scotland production of Black Watch - as a sergeant who is killed in Iraq and a researcher interviewing the soldiers for a play - on tour in the US. The production proved so popular that Prince Charles attended. And one night both Sean Connery and John Hurt were in the audience. "That was embarrassing," recalls Higgins. "There's a bit in the play where the squaddies are arguing who should play them in the film of their lives. One says, 'I definitely don't want that c*** from The Elephant Man.' And we all knew the line was coming and that John Hurt was in the front row, but what could we do? The next day we got a card saying, 'Congratulations on a magnificent performance of a very important play - from the c*** in The Elephant Man and his wife.'"

(Not sure about the swearing policy round these parts, so I played safe - but the original is unexpurgated, so may not be work safe)

[image45]

name='Steve Crook']A great documentary about "National treasure", Stephen Fry on his 50th birthday. Shown on BBC4 but watch out for repeats on BBC4 or BBC2.



Part of the Stephen Fry weekend where he introduces some of his finest work and some of his favourites by other people



BBC Four



They're showing his documentary The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive on Tuesday & Wednesday next week. If you didn't catch it before, or even if you did, do try to watch it.



Steve

watch out for repeats on BBC4 or BBC2.



Some nights that all BBC 4 does, luckly the content is often great viewing so you do not mind seeing it all again in one night

[clitheroekid]

And who was that woman with the dark curly hair and white polka dot blouse who contributed several times, but there was no caption to say who she was - yet seemingly every time Ross or Anderson or Branagh were on screen, there was a caption telling us. Blimey! even Charles had at least two name captions, as if there was anyone watching who didn't know who he was!

[Cheeky Bob]

name='clitheroekid']And who was that woman with the dark curly hair and white polka dot blouse who contributed several times, but there was no caption to say who she was - yet seemingly every time Ross or Anderson or Branagh were on screen, there was a caption telling us.

Imelda Staunton popped up a few times - was it her?



They took some time to give a caption to Michael Sheen, who isn't exactly instantly recognisable. (He really does look alarmingly like Tony Blair with curlier hair, doesn't he?)

[clitheroekid]

I don't know what Imelda Staunton looks like, so it could have been her. And you are right about Sheen, exactly my thoughts about no caption for ages.

[Joenoir]

The superb Imelda Staunton.

[Cheeky Bob]

name='Joenoir'] The superb Imelda Staunton.

That's not a particularly good representation of what she looked like on the programme - her hair was much darker, for starters.

[clitheroekid]

That's her - but why no caption I wonder?

[Steve Crook]

name='clitheroekid']That's her - but why no caption I wonder?

Did they assume that all viewers would know who everyone was?

Obviously a mistaken assumption



Steve

[clitheroekid]

No, my point was that every talking head had a caption except her. Even Charles had one!

[Windthrop]

name='Steve Crook']A great documentary about "National treasure", Stephen Fry on his 50th birthday. Shown on BBC4 but watch out for repeats on BBC4 or BBC2.



Part of the Stephen Fry weekend where he introduces some of his finest work and some of his favourites by other people



BBC Four



They're showing his documentary The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive on Tuesday & Wednesday next week. If you didn't catch it before, or even if you did, do try to watch it.



Steve

Why isn't 'The Common Pursuit' part of the season then ? great adaptation of Simon Gray play

[clitheroekid]

Mark Lawson talks to Stephen Fry.



Some great insights into the man but after a while I found it very difficult to watch - Fry with his constant nose rubbing and Lawson with his facial tics (which I hadn't noticed before)

[Steve Crook]

name='clitheroekid']No, my point was that every talking head had a caption except her. Even Charles had one!

She did have one

I was just skimming through it again and I noticed that Imelda wasn't brought in for a long time in the middle, when everyone else was getting captioned. None of the people that spoke at the beginning were captioned when they first spoke. They had a spate of captioning about 10-15 minutes in. Then, when they were talking about Bright Young Things, about half way through, Imelda made another comment and as it was her first since they started captioning, she got labelled at last



Steve

[clitheroekid]

Oh, I obviously missed that!

[Cheeky Bob]

I finally caught up with the Mark Lawson programme, and have to say that I thought it was by far the best of the three specially-produced documentaries - and made Friday's luvvie-fest look even more ghastly and redundant by comparison.



In all seriousness, I'd love to know what the famously self-critical Fry thought of the latter - assuming he could bear to get past the first couple of minutes.