Stephen John Fry is an English actor, screenwriter, author, playwright, journalist, poet, comedian, television presenter and film director, and a director of
Norwich City Football ClubNorwich City Football Club is an English professional football club based in Norwich, Norfolk. As of the 2011–12 season, Norwich City are again playing in the Premier League after a six-year absence, having finished as runner up in the Championship in 2010–11 and winning automatic promotion.The...
. He first came to attention in the 1981
Cambridge Footlights RevueThe Cambridge Footlights Revue is an annual revue by the Footlights Club - a group of comic writer-performers at the University of Cambridge. Two of the more notable revues are detailed below.-"A Clump of Plinths" — "Cambridge Circus":...
presentation "The Cellar Tapes", which also included
Hugh LaurieJames Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE , better known as Hugh Laurie , is an English actor, voice artist, comedian, writer, musician, recording artist, and director...
,
Emma ThompsonEmma Thompson is a British actress, comedian and screenwriter. Her first major film role was in the 1989 romantic comedy The Tall Guy. In 1992, Thompson won multiple acting awards, including an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress, for her performance in the British drama Howards End...
and
Tony SlatteryAnthony Declan James "Tony" Slattery is an English actor and comedian who has appeared on British television regularly since the mid 1980s, most notably as a regular on the Channel 4 improvisation show Whose Line Is It Anyway? As a film actor, both comedic and serious, his credits include The...
. With Hugh Laurie, as the comedy double act
Fry and LaurieFry and Laurie, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, were a successful English comedy double act, mostly active in the 1980s and 1990s. Having met in 1980 through mutual friend Emma Thompson , Fry and Laurie have since collaborated on numerous projects together, including Jeeves and Wooster, in which...
, he co-wrote and co-starred in
A Bit of Fry & Laurie, and the duo also played the title roles in
Jeeves and Wooster-External links:*—An episode guide to the series, including information about which episodes were adapted from which Wodehouse stories.*—Episode guides, screenshots and quotes from the four series....
.
As a solo actor, Fry played the lead in the film
WildeWilde is a 1997 British biographical film directed by Brian Gilbert with Stephen Fry in the title role. The screenplay by Julian Mitchell is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1987 biography of Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellmann.-Plot:...
, was
MelchettMelchett is a family line of fictional characters appearing in the British television sitcom series Blackadder, played by Stephen Fry. There were two main Melchetts: Lord Melchett and General Melchett.- Blackadder II :...
in the
BBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
television series
BlackadderBlackadder is the name that encompassed four series of a BBC1 historical sitcom, along with several one-off instalments. All television programme episodes starred Rowan Atkinson as anti-hero Edmund Blackadder and Tony Robinson as Blackadder's dogsbody, Baldrick...
, starred as the title character Peter Kingdom in the
ITVITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...
series
KingdomKingdom is a British television series produced by Parallel Film and Television Productions for the ITV network. It was created by Simon Wheeler and stars Stephen Fry as Peter Kingdom, a Norfolk solicitor who is coping with family, colleagues, and the strange locals who come to him for legal...
, and is the host of the quiz show
QIQI is a British comedy panel game television quiz show created and co-produced by John Lloyd, hosted by Stephen Fry, and featuring permanent panellist Alan Davies. Most of the questions are extremely obscure, making it unlikely that the correct answer will be given...
. He also presented a 2008 television series
Stephen Fry in AmericaStephen Fry in America is a six part BBC television series in which Stephen Fry travels across America to reveal a country in which he was almost born. Just before Fry was born, his father was offered a job at Princeton University, in New Jersey, but chose to turn it down in favour of Hampstead. In...
, which saw him travelling across all 50
U.S. stateA U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
s in six episodes. Fry has a recurring guest role as Dr. Gordon Wyatt on the
FoxFox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
crime series
BonesBones is an American crime drama television series that premiered on the Fox Network on September 13, 2005. The show is based on forensic anthropology and forensic archaeology, with each episode focusing on an FBI case file concerning the mystery behind human remains brought by FBI Special Agent...
and had a supporting role as rogue TV host Gordon Dietrich in the dystopian thriller
V For VendettaV for Vendetta is a 2005 dystopian thriller film directed by James McTeigue and produced by Joel Silver and the Wachowski brothers, who also wrote the screenplay. It is an adaptation of the V for Vendetta comic book by Alan Moore and David Lloyd...
.
Apart from his work in television, Fry has contributed columns and articles for newspapers and magazines, and has written four novels and two volumes of autobiography,
Moab Is My WashpotMoab Is My Washpot is Stephen Fry’s autobiography, covering the first 20 years of his life. Reviewers described it as both humorous and painfully candid....
and
The Fry ChroniclesThe Fry Chronicles: An Autobiography is the 2010 autobiography of Stephen Fry. The book is a continuation from the end of his 1997 publication of his first autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot: An Autobiography...
. He also appears frequently on
BBC Radio 4BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
, starring in the comedy series
Absolute Power, being a frequent guest on panel games such as
Just a MinuteJust a Minute is a BBC Radio 4 radio comedy panel game chaired by Nicholas Parsons. Its first transmission on Radio 4 was on 22 December 1967, three months after the station's launch. The Radio 4 programme won a Gold Sony Radio Academy Award in 2003....
, and acting as chairman for
I'm Sorry I Haven't a ClueI'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, sometimes abbreviated to ISIHAC or Clue, is a BBC radio comedy panel game broadcast since 11 April 1972 at the rate of one or two series each year , transmitted on BBC Radio 4, with occasional repeats on BBC Radio 4 Extra and the BBC's World Service...
, where he was one of a trio of hosts who succeeded the late
Humphrey LytteltonHumphrey Richard Adeane Lyttelton , also known as Humph, was an English jazz musician and broadcaster, and chairman of the BBC radio comedy programme I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue...
. Fry is also known in the UK for his audiobook recordings, particularly as reader for all seven
Harry PotterHarry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
novels.
Early life
Fry was born in Hampstead, London, on 24 August 1957, the son of Marianne Eve Fry (née Newman) and Alan John Fry, who was an English physicist and inventor. His maternal grandparents, Martin and Rosa Neumann, were Hungarian Jewish immigrants from
ŠuranyŠurany is a town and a railroad hub in the Nové Zámky District, Nitra Region, southern Slovakia.Alongside the main settlement, it has the boroughs of Kostolný Sek and Nitriansky Hrádok, both annexed 1976....
, which is now in
SlovakiaThe Slovak Republic is a landlocked state in Central Europe. It has a population of over five million and an area of about . Slovakia is bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south...
, and his mother's aunt and cousins died in
AuschwitzConcentration camp Auschwitz was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II...
. Fry grew up in the village of
BootonBooton is a village and civil parish in the Broadland district of Norfolk, England, just east of Reepham and seven miles west of Aylsham. According to the 2001 census, it had a population of 100.- Notable residents :...
near
Reepham, Norfolk, having moved from
CheshamChesham is a market town in the Chiltern Hills, Buckinghamshire, England. It is located 11 miles south-east of the county town of Aylesbury. Chesham is also a civil parish designated a town council within Chiltern district. It is situated in the Chess Valley and surrounded by farmland, as well as...
,
BuckinghamshireBuckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
at an early age.
Fry briefly attended Cawston Primary School,
Cawston, NorfolkCawston is a small village located approximately North of Norwich, off the B1149 main road to Holt. Nearby villages are Reepham and Aylsham.-Church of St Agnes:...
, described later in his 1997 book
Moab Is My Washpot, before going on to
Stouts HillStouts Hill is an 18th-Century Gothic revival country house situated in the Cotswolds, just outside the village of Uley. The house is currently a timeshare property....
Preparatory School at the age of seven, and then to
Uppingham SchoolUppingham School is a co-educational independent school of the English public school tradition, situated in the small town of Uppingham in Rutland, England...
, Rutland, where he joined Fircroft house. He was expelled from Uppingham when he was 15, and subsequently from Paston School.
At 17, after leaving
Norfolk College of Arts and TechnologyThe College of West Anglia is a college of further education in Norfolk, England. Founded in 1894 as the King's Lynn Technical School in the port town of King's Lynn, Norfolk...
, Fry absconded with a
credit cardA credit card is a small plastic card issued to users as a system of payment. It allows its holder to buy goods and services based on the holder's promise to pay for these goods and services...
stolen from a family friend, was arrested in
SwindonSwindon is a large town within the borough of Swindon and ceremonial county of Wiltshire, in South West England. It is midway between Bristol, west and Reading, east. London is east...
, and as a result spent three months in
Pucklechurch PrisonHM Prison Ashfield is a male juvenile's prison located in the village of Pucklechurch , in Gloucestershire, England. The prison is operated by the Serco Group....
on remand.
Following his release he resumed education at
City College NorwichCity College Norwich is a college of further and higher education which is located on Ipswich Road, in Norwich, Norfolk, England. The college has a second site at St Andrews House in Norwich city centre, which is also home to the National Skills Academy for Financial Services. Founded in 1891,...
, promising administrators that he would study rigorously to sit the
CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
entrance exams. He passed well enough to gain a scholarship to
Queens' College, CambridgeQueens' College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou , and refounded in 1465 by Elizabeth Woodville...
. At Cambridge, Fry joined the
Cambridge FootlightsCambridge University Footlights Dramatic Club, commonly referred to simply as the Footlights, is an amateur theatrical club in Cambridge, England, founded in 1883 and run by the students of Cambridge University....
, appeared on
University ChallengeUniversity Challenge is a British quiz programme that has aired since 1962. The format is based on the American show College Bowl, which ran on NBC radio from 1953 to 1957, and on NBC television from 1959 to 1970....
, and gained a degree in English literature. It was at the Footlights that Fry met his future comedy collaborator
Hugh LaurieJames Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE , better known as Hugh Laurie , is an English actor, voice artist, comedian, writer, musician, recording artist, and director...
.
Television
Fry's career in television began with the 1982 broadcasting of
The Cellar Tapes, the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue which was written by Fry,
Hugh LaurieJames Hugh Calum Laurie, OBE , better known as Hugh Laurie , is an English actor, voice artist, comedian, writer, musician, recording artist, and director...
,
Emma ThompsonEmma Thompson is a British actress, comedian and screenwriter. Her first major film role was in the 1989 romantic comedy The Tall Guy. In 1992, Thompson won multiple acting awards, including an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for Best Actress, for her performance in the British drama Howards End...
and
Tony SlatteryAnthony Declan James "Tony" Slattery is an English actor and comedian who has appeared on British television regularly since the mid 1980s, most notably as a regular on the Channel 4 improvisation show Whose Line Is It Anyway? As a film actor, both comedic and serious, his credits include The...
. The revue caught the attention of
Granada TelevisionGranada Television is the ITV contractor for North West England. Based in Manchester since its inception, it is the only surviving original ITA franchisee from 1954 and is ITV's most successful....
, who, keen to replicate the success of the BBC's
Not the Nine O'Clock NewsNot the Nine O'Clock News is a television comedy sketch show which was broadcast on BBC 2 from 1979 to 1982.Originally shown as a comedy "alternative" to the BBC Nine O'Clock News on BBC 1, it featured satirical sketches on current news stories and popular culture, as well as parody songs, comedy...
, hired Fry, Laurie and Thompson to star alongside
Ben EltonBenjamin Charles "Ben" Elton is an English comedian, author, playwright and director. He was a leading figure in the British alternative comedy movement of the 1980s, as a writer on such cult series as The Young Ones and Blackadder, as well as also a successful stand-up comedian on stage and TV....
in
There's Nothing to Worry About!Alfresco is a British television series starring Robbie Coltrane, Ben Elton, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Siobhan Redmond and Emma Thompson, produced by Granada Television and broadcast by ITV from May 1983 to June 1984...
. A second series, re-titled
AlfrescoAlfresco is a British television series starring Robbie Coltrane, Ben Elton, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Siobhan Redmond and Emma Thompson, produced by Granada Television and broadcast by ITV from May 1983 to June 1984...
, was broadcast in 1983 and a third in 1984; it established Fry and Laurie's reputation as a comedy double act. In 1983, the BBC offered them their own show, which became
The Crystal CubeThe Crystal Cube was a mockumentary television pilot written by and starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, broadcast on 7 July 1983 on BBC Two at 22:10. The pilot was one of Fry and Laurie's first television appearances and the first show they had written themselves...
, a mixture of science fiction and
mockumentaryA mockumentary , is a type of film or television show in which fictitious events are presented in documentary format. These productions are often used to analyze or comment on current events and issues by using a fictitious setting, or to parody the documentary form itself...
that was axed after the first episode. Undeterred, Fry and Laurie appeared in an episode of
The Young OnesThe Young Ones is a British sitcom, first broadcast in 1982, which ran for two series on BBC2. Its anarchic, offbeat humour helped bring alternative comedy to television in the 1980s and made household names of its writers and performers...
in 1984, and Fry in Ben Elton's 1985 series,
Happy FamiliesHappy Families was a rural comedy drama written by Ben Elton which appeared on the BBC in 1985 and told the story of the dysfunctional Fuddle family....
. In 1986 and 1987 Fry and Laurie also performed sketches on the LWT/Channel 4 show
Saturday Live.
Forgiving Fry and Laurie for
The Crystal Cube, the BBC commissioned a sketch show in 1986 that was to become
A Bit of Fry & Laurie. The programme ran for 26 episodes spanning four series between 1986 and 1995, and was very successful. During this time Fry starred in
Blackadder IIBlackadder II is the second series of the BBC situation comedy Blackadder, written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, which aired from 9 January 1986 to 20 February 1986...
as Lord Melchett, made a guest appearance in
Blackadder the Third as the
Duke of WellingtonField Marshal Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, KG, GCB, GCH, PC, FRS , was an Irish-born British soldier and statesman, and one of the leading military and political figures of the 19th century...
, then returned to a starring role in
Blackadder Goes ForthBlackadder Goes Forth is the fourth and final series of the BBC situation comedy Blackadder, written by Richard Curtis and Ben Elton, which aired from 28 September to 2 November 1989 on BBC One....
as General Melchett. In 1988, he became a regular contestant on the popular improvisational comedy radio show
Whose Line Is It Anyway?Whose Line Is It Anyway? is a short-form improvisational comedy TV show. Originally a British radio programme, it moved to television in 1988 as a series made for the UK's Channel 4, for a 10 series run...
. However, when it moved to television, he only appeared three times: twice in the first series and once in the ninth.
Between 1990 and 1993, Fry starred as
JeevesReginald Jeeves is a fictional character in the short stories and novels of P. G. Wodehouse, being the valet of Bertie Wooster . Created in 1915, Jeeves would continue to appear in Wodehouse's works until his final, completed, novel Aunts Aren't Gentlemen in 1974, making him Wodehouse's most famous...
(alongside Hugh Laurie's
Bertie WoosterBertram Wilberforce "Bertie" Wooster is a recurring fictional character in the Jeeves novels of British author P. G. Wodehouse. An English gentleman, one of the "idle rich" and a member of the Drones Club, he appears alongside his valet, Jeeves, whose genius manages to extricate Bertie or one of...
) in
Jeeves and Wooster-External links:*—An episode guide to the series, including information about which episodes were adapted from which Wodehouse stories.*—Episode guides, screenshots and quotes from the four series....
, 23 hour-long adaptations of P.G. Wodehouse's novels and short stories.
In 1998 BBC Two aired a
Malcolm BradburySir Malcolm Stanley Bradbury CBE was an English author and academic.-Life:Bradbury was the son of a railwayman. His family moved to London in 1935, but returned to Sheffield in 1941 with his brother and mother...
adaptation of the
Mark TavenerMark Tavener was a British novelist who also wrote for radio and television. Born and brought up in Plymouth, educated at Plymouth College and Peterhouse Cambridge. His 1989 satirical novel In the Red was adapted for radio in 1995, and television in 1998...
1989 novel,
In the Red with Fry taking the part of the Controller of
BBC Radio 2BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult Contemporary or AOR, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres...
.
In 2000, Fry played the role of Professor Bellgrove in the BBC serial
Gormenghast which was an adaptation of the first two novels of
Mervyn PeakeMervyn Laurence Peake was an English writer, artist, poet and illustrator. He is best known for what are usually referred to as the Gormenghast books. They are sometimes compared to the work of his older contemporary J. R. R...
's
Gormenghast seriesThe Gormenghast series comprises three novels by Mervyn Peake, featuring Castle Gormenghast, and Titus Groan, the title character of the first book.-Works in the series:...
.
In 2009, Fry briefly hosted
CBBCCBBC is one of two brand names used for the BBC's children's television strands. Between 1985 and 2002, CBBC was the name given to all the BBC's programmes on TV for children aged under 14...
series
Horrible HistoriesHorrible Histories is an award-winning British children's television series based on the Terry Deary book series of the same name. The first series was thirteen episodes long, and was broadcast from 16 April to 9 July 2009 on CBBC on BBC One. A second series, of twelve episodes , aired from 31 May...
, an educational TV show for school children. In 2010 he filmed a cameo role in
Ros na RúnRos na Rún is an Irish soap opera produced for Irish language TV channel TG4. It broadcasts for 35 weeks of the year, airing 2 episodes each week.It airs in Ireland, Scotland and the United States.-Show history:...
, an
Irish languageIrish , also known as Irish Gaelic, is a Goidelic language of the Indo-European language family, originating in Ireland and historically spoken by the Irish people. Irish is now spoken as a first language by a minority of Irish people, as well as being a second language of a larger proportion of...
soap opera broadcast in Ireland, Scotland and the United States. Fry learned Irish for the role. He also came together with Laurie for a retrospective of their partnership titled
Fry and Laurie Reunited.
In 2010 Fry took part in a Christmas series of Short Films called 'Little Crackers'. Fry's short is based on a story from his childhood at school. He appeared as the Christian God in 2011's
Holy Flying CircusHoly Flying Circus is a 90-minute BBC television comedy film from 2011, about the 1979 television debate about the film Monty Python's Life of Brian...
.
QI
In 2003, Fry began hosting the TV game show
QIQI is a British comedy panel game television quiz show created and co-produced by John Lloyd, hosted by Stephen Fry, and featuring permanent panellist Alan Davies. Most of the questions are extremely obscure, making it unlikely that the correct answer will be given...
(Quite Interesting), a British comedy
panel gameA panel game or panel show is a radio or television game show in which a panel of celebrities participates. Panelists may compete with each other, such as on The News Quiz; facilitate play by guest contestants, such as on Match Game/Blankety Blank; or do both, such as on Wait Wait.....
television
quiz showQuiz Show is a 1994 American historical drama film produced and directed by Robert Redford. Adapted by Paul Attanasio from Richard Goodwin's memoir Remembering America, the film is based upon the Twenty One quiz show scandal of the 1950s...
.
QI was created and co-produced by
John LloydJohn Hardress Wilfred Lloyd CBE is a British comedy writer and television producer. He is the great nephew of John Hardress Lloyd.-Early life and career:...
, and features permanent panellist
Alan DaviesAlan Davies is an English comedian, writer and actor best known for starring in the TV mystery series Jonathan Creek and as the permanent panellist on the TV panel show QI.- Early life :...
.
QI has the highest viewing figures for any show on
BBC FourBBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
and UKTV G2 (now Dave). In 2006, Fry won the
Rose d'OrThe Rose d’Or is one of the most important international festivals in entertainment television. It was founded in Montreux in 1961 and has taken place in Lucerne since 2004. Producers, executives from independent and public service broadcasters and heads of production companies from over 40...
award for "Best Game Show Host" for his work on the series.
Other series
A foray into documentary-making has seen Fry fronting the
Emmy AwardAn Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
-winning
The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive in 2006, and in 2007 a documentary on the subject of
HIVHuman immunodeficiency virus is a lentivirus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome , a condition in humans in which progressive failure of the immune system allows life-threatening opportunistic infections and cancers to thrive...
and
AIDSAcquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
,
HIV and Me. Also in 2006, he appeared in the genealogy series
Who Do You Think You Are?, tracing his family tree to discover his Jewish ancestry. His six-part travel series
Stephen Fry in America began on BBC One on 12 October 2008. In May 2008, it was announced that a five-part companion series,
More Fry in America, had been commissioned for BBC Four; it was to feature in-depth essays excluded from the first series due to time constraints. No further information about the project has since been released. Fry has also been involved in
nature documentariesA natural history film or wildlife film is a documentary film about animals, plants, or other non-human living creatures, usually concentrating on film taken in their natural habitat...
, having narrated
Spectacled Bears: Shadow of the Forest for the BBC
Natural World series in 2008. In the television series
Last Chance to SeeLast Chance to See is a wildlife documentary first broadcast on BBC Two in the United Kingdom during September and October 2009. The series is a follow-up of the radio series, also called Last Chance to See in which Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine set out to find endangered animals...
, Fry together with zoologist
Mark CarwardineMark Carwardine is a zoologist who achieved widespread recognition for his Last Chance to See conservation expeditions with Douglas Adams, first aired on BBC Radio 4 in 1990. Since then he has become a leading and outspoken conservationist, and a prolific broadcaster, columnist and...
sought out endangered species, some of which were featured in
Douglas AdamsDouglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
and Carwardine's
1990 book/radio series of the same nameLast Chance to See is a 1989 BBC radio documentary series and its accompanying book, written and presented by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine. In the series, Adams and Carwardine travel to various locations in the hope of encountering species on the brink of extinction...
. The resulting programmes were broadcast in 2009.
From 2007 to 2009, Fry appeared in and was executive producer for the legal drama
KingdomKingdom is a British television series produced by Parallel Film and Television Productions for the ITV network. It was created by Simon Wheeler and stars Stephen Fry as Peter Kingdom, a Norfolk solicitor who is coping with family, colleagues, and the strange locals who come to him for legal...
, which ran for three series on
ITV1ITV1 is a generic brand that is used by twelve franchises of the British ITV Network in the English regions, Wales, southern Scotland , the Isle of Man and the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey. The ITV1 brand was introduced by Carlton and Granada in 2001, alongside the regional identities of their...
. He has also taken up a recurring guest role as psychiatrist Dr. Gordon Wyatt in the popular American drama
BonesBones is an American crime drama television series that premiered on the Fox Network on September 13, 2005. The show is based on forensic anthropology and forensic archaeology, with each episode focusing on an FBI case file concerning the mystery behind human remains brought by FBI Special Agent...
.
On 7 May 2008, Fry gave a speech as part of a series of BBC lectures on the future of
public service broadcasting in the United KingdomIn the United Kingdom the term "public service broadcasting" refers to broadcasting intended for the public benefit rather than for purely commercial concerns. The communications regulator Ofcom, requires that certain television and radio broadcasters fulfil certain requirements as part of their...
, which he later recorded for a podcast.
Fry narrates the English language version of the Spanish children's animated series
PocoyoPocoyo is a Spanish pre-school animated television series created by Guillermo García Carsí, Luis Gallego and David Cantolla, and is a co-production between Spanish producer Zinkia Entertainment, Cosgrove-Hall Films and Granada International. Two series have been produced, each consisting of 52...
. Fry appeared on
Room 101Room 101 is a BBC comedy television series based on the radio series of the same name, in which celebrities were invited to discuss their pet hates and persuade the host to consign them to a fate worse than death in Room 101, named after the torture room in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, which is...
in 2001, in episode 10 of series 6.
In September 2011
Fry's Planet WordFry's Planet Word is a documentary series about language. Written and Presented by Stephen Fry, the first of five, hour-long episodes was broadcast on 25 September 2011 on BBC HD and two days later on BBC Two. The series is produced and directed by John-Paul Davidson who worked with Fry on two...
, a five-part documentary about language, began its run on BBC HD and BBC Two.
Film
Having made his film debut in the 1985 film
The Good FatherThe Good Father is a 1985 British film directed by Mike Newell and starring Anthony Hopkins, Jim Broadbent, Harriet Walter, Fanny Viner, Simon Callow, Joanne Whalley, and Michael Byrne....
, Fry had a brief appearance in
A Fish Called WandaA Fish Called Wanda is a 1988 crime-comedy film written by John Cleese and Charles Crichton. It was directed by Crichton and an uncredited Cleese, and stars Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline and Michael Palin. The film is about a jewel heist and its aftermath...
(in which he is knocked out by
Kevin KlineKevin Delaney Kline is an American theatre, voice, film actor and comedian. He has won an Academy Award and two Tony Awards, and has been nominated for five Golden Globe Awards, two BAFTA Awards and an Emmy Award.- Early life :...
, who is posing as an airport security man) and then appeared in the lead role for
Kenneth BranaghKenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from Northern Ireland. He is best known for directing and starring in several film adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays including Henry V , Much Ado About Nothing , Hamlet Kenneth Charles Branagh is an actor and film director from...
's
Peter's FriendsPeter's Friends is a 1992 British comedy-drama film written by Rita Rudner and her husband Martin Bergman, and directed and produced by Kenneth Branagh....
in 1992. In the 1994 romantic comedy film
I.Q.I.Q. is a 1994 American romantic comedy film directed by Fred Schepisi and starring Tim Robbins, Meg Ryan, and Walter Matthau. The original music score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith...
, he played the role of James Moreland. Portraying
Oscar WildeOscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
(a man of whom he had been a fan since the age of 13) in the 1997 film
WildeWilde is a 1997 British biographical film directed by Brian Gilbert with Stephen Fry in the title role. The screenplay by Julian Mitchell is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1987 biography of Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellmann.-Plot:...
, he fulfilled to critical acclaim a role that he has said he was "born to play". A year later, Fry starred in
David YatesDavid Yates is an English filmmaker who rose to mainstream prominence directing the final four films in the Harry Potter film series. He helmed the series' fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth installments, all of which became an instant blockbuster success and made him the most commercially...
' small independent film
The Tichborne ClaimantThe Tichborne Claimant is a 1998 dramatic film directed by David Yates.-Cast:*Robert Pugh as The Claimant*John Kani as Bogle*Stephen Fry as Hawkins*John Gielgud as Cockburn*Robert Hardy as Lord Rivers*Charles Gray as Arundell...
, and in 2001 he played the detective in Robert Altman's period costume drama,
Gosford ParkGosford Park is a 2001 British-American mystery comedy-drama film directed by Robert Altman and written by Julian Fellowes. The film stars an ensemble cast, which includes Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins, Alan Bates, and Michael Gambon...
. In the same year he also appeared in the Dutch film
The Discovery of HeavenThe Discovery of Heaven is a 1992 novel by Dutch author Harry Mulisch. It describes the intense friendship between two men and the mystical journey of another to return to Heaven the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments....
, directed by
Jeroen KrabbéJeroen Aart Krabbé is a Dutch actor and film director who has appeared in many Dutch and international films.-Biography:...
and based on the novel by
Harry MulischHarry Kurt Victor Mulisch was a Dutch author. He wrote more than 80 novels, plays, essays, poems and philosophical reflections. These have been translated into more than 20 languages....
.
In 2003, Fry made his directorial debut with
Bright Young ThingsBright Young Things is a 2003 British drama film written and directed by Stephen Fry. The screenplay, based on the 1930 novel Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh, provides satirical social commentary about the Bright Young People: young and carefree London aristocrats and bohemians, as well as society in...
, adapted by himself from
Evelyn WaughArthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
's
Vile BodiesVile Bodies is a 1930 novel by Evelyn Waugh satirising the Bright Young People: decadent young London society between World War I and World War II.-Title:The title comes from the Epistle to the Philippians 3:21...
. In 2001, he began hosting the BAFTA Film Awards, a role from which he stepped down in 2006. Later that same year, he wrote the English
librettoA libretto is the text used in an extended musical work such as an opera, operetta, masque, oratorio, cantata, or musical. The term "libretto" is also sometimes used to refer to the text of major liturgical works, such as mass, requiem, and sacred cantata, or even the story line of a...
and dialogue for Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of
The Magic FluteThe Magic Flute is Kenneth Branagh's English-language film version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's singspiel Die Zauberflöte. The film is a co-production between France & the UK, produced by Idéale Audience and in association with UK's The Peter Moores Foundation.In November 2005, it was announced...
.
Fry continues to make regular film appearances, notably in treatments of literary cult classics. He portrayed
Maurice WoodruffMaurice Woodruff was an English clairvoyant and astrologer, born and raised in London. He achieved considerable fame both in his native England and internationally due to the perceived accuracy of his predictions. He presented his predictions to the public via newspapers and also via stage,...
in
The Life and Death of Peter SellersThe Life and Death of Peter Sellers is a 2004 film about the life of English comic actor Peter Sellers, based on Roger Lewis' book of the same name...
, served as narrator in the
2005 film versionThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a 2005 comic science fiction film based on the book of the same name by Douglas Adams. Shooting was completed in August 2004 and the movie was released on April 28, 2005 in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and on the following day in Canada and the United...
of
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the GalaxyThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy series created by Douglas Adams. Originally a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978, it was later adapted to other formats, and over several years it gradually became an international multi-media phenomenon...
, and in 2005 he appeared in both
A Cock and Bull StoryA Cock and Bull Story is a 2006 British comedy film directed by Michael Winterbottom...
, based on
Tristram Shandy, and as a non-conforming TV Presenter who challenges the fascist state in
V for VendettaV for Vendetta is a 2005 dystopian thriller film directed by James McTeigue and produced by Joel Silver and the Wachowski brothers, who also wrote the screenplay. It is an adaptation of the V for Vendetta comic book by Alan Moore and David Lloyd...
. In 2006, he played the role of gadget-master Smithers in
StormbreakerStormbreaker is a 2006 British spy film based on Anthony Horowitz's novel of the same name, the first novel in the Alex Rider series. It stars newcomer Alex Pettyfer as the teenage spy alongside actors Mickey Rourke and Bill Nighy...
, and in 2007 he appeared as himself hosting a quiz in
St Trinian'sSt Trinian's is the sixth in a long-running series of films based on the works of cartoonist Ronald Searle. The first five films form a series, starting with The Belles of St Trinian's in 1954, with sequels in 1957, 1960, 1966 and 1980....
. In 2007, Fry wrote a script for a remake of
The Dam BustersThe Dam Busters is a 1955 British Second World War war film starring Michael Redgrave and Richard Todd and directed by Michael Anderson. The film recreates the true story of Operation Chastise when in 1943 the RAF's 617 Squadron attacked the Möhne, Eder and Sorpe dams in Germany with Wallis's...
for director
Peter JacksonSir Peter Robert Jackson, KNZM is a New Zealand film director, producer, actor, and screenwriter, known for his The Lord of the Rings film trilogy , adapted from the novel by J. R. R...
.
In 2008, he participated in a film celebrating the 25th anniversary of
GNUGNU is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system"...
,
Happy Birthday to GNU. Fry was offered a role in
ValkyrieValkyrie is a 2008 American historical thriller film set in Nazi Germany during World War II. The film depicts the 20 July plot in 1944 by German army officers to assassinate Adolf Hitler and to use the Operation Valkyrie national emergency plan to take control of the country...
but was unable to participate. Fry starred in the
Tim BurtonTimothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...
version of
Alice in WonderlandAlice in Wonderland is a 2010 American computer-animated/live action fantasy adventure film directed by Tim Burton, written by Linda Woolverton, and released by Walt Disney Pictures...
, as the voice of
The Cheshire CatThe Cheshire Cat is a fictional cat popularised by Lewis Carroll's depiction of it in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Known for his distinctive mischievous grin, the Cheshire Cat has had a notable impact on popular culture.-Origins:...
. He will play
Mycroft HolmesMycroft Holmes is a fictional character in the stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. He is the elder brother of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes.- Profile :...
in
the sequelSherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is an upcoming 2011 British-American action mystery film directed by Guy Ritchie and produced by Joel Silver, Lionel Wigram, Susan Downey, and Dan Lin. It is a sequel to the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes, based on the character of the same name created by Sir Arthur...
to
Sherlock HolmesSherlock Holmes is a 2009 action-mystery film based on the character of the same name created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The film was directed by Guy Ritchie and produced by Joel Silver, Lionel Wigram, Susan Downey and Dan Lin. The screenplay by Michael Robert Johnson, Anthony Peckham and Simon...
directed by
Guy RitchieGuy Stuart Ritchie is an English screenwriter and film maker who directed Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Snatch, Revolver, RocknRolla and Sherlock Holmes.-Early life:...
. In 2010, Fry provided the voice of Socrates the Lion in the environmental animated film
Animals United. He will portray the Master of Lake-town in the 2012 film adaptation of
J. R. R. TolkienJohn Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
's
The HobbitThe Hobbit, or There and Back Again, better known by its abbreviated title The Hobbit, is a fantasy novel and children's book by J. R. R. Tolkien. It was published on 21 September 1937 to wide critical acclaim, being nominated for the Carnegie Medal and awarded a prize from the New York Herald...
.
Feature Filmography
- 1985: The Good Father
The Good Father is a 1985 British film directed by Mike Newell and starring Anthony Hopkins, Jim Broadbent, Harriet Walter, Fanny Viner, Simon Callow, Joanne Whalley, and Michael Byrne....
- As Creighton
- 1988: A Fish Called Wanda
A Fish Called Wanda is a 1988 crime-comedy film written by John Cleese and Charles Crichton. It was directed by Crichton and an uncredited Cleese, and stars Cleese, Jamie Lee Curtis, Kevin Kline and Michael Palin. The film is about a jewel heist and its aftermath...
- As Hutchison
- 1992: Peter's Friends
Peter's Friends is a 1992 British comedy-drama film written by Rita Rudner and her husband Martin Bergman, and directed and produced by Kenneth Branagh....
- As Peter
- 1994: I.Q.
I.Q. is a 1994 American romantic comedy film directed by Fred Schepisi and starring Tim Robbins, Meg Ryan, and Walter Matthau. The original music score was composed by Jerry Goldsmith...
- As James Moreland
- 1997: Wilde
Wilde is a 1997 British biographical film directed by Brian Gilbert with Stephen Fry in the title role. The screenplay by Julian Mitchell is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1987 biography of Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellmann.-Plot:...
- As Oscar Wilde
- 2001: Gosford Park
Gosford Park is a 2001 British-American mystery comedy-drama film directed by Robert Altman and written by Julian Fellowes. The film stars an ensemble cast, which includes Helen Mirren, Maggie Smith, Eileen Atkins, Alan Bates, and Michael Gambon...
- As Inspector Thompson
- 2003: Bright Young Things
Bright Young Things is a 2003 British drama film written and directed by Stephen Fry. The screenplay, based on the 1930 novel Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh, provides satirical social commentary about the Bright Young People: young and carefree London aristocrats and bohemians, as well as society in...
- Director
- 2005: The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a 2005 comic science fiction film based on the book of the same name by Douglas Adams. Shooting was completed in August 2004 and the movie was released on April 28, 2005 in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, and on the following day in Canada and the United...
- As The Narrator (Voice)
- 2006: The Magic Flute
The Magic Flute is Kenneth Branagh's English-language film version of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's singspiel Die Zauberflöte. The film is a co-production between France & the UK, produced by Idéale Audience and in association with UK's The Peter Moores Foundation.In November 2005, it was announced...
- Writer
- 2006: V for Vendetta
V for Vendetta is a 2005 dystopian thriller film directed by James McTeigue and produced by Joel Silver and the Wachowski brothers, who also wrote the screenplay. It is an adaptation of the V for Vendetta comic book by Alan Moore and David Lloyd...
- As Deitrich
- 2007: Stormbreaker
Stormbreaker is a 2006 British spy film based on Anthony Horowitz's novel of the same name, the first novel in the Alex Rider series. It stars newcomer Alex Pettyfer as the teenage spy alongside actors Mickey Rourke and Bill Nighy...
- As Smithers
- 2007: St. Trinian's - As Himself
- 2010: Alice in Wonderland
Alice in Wonderland is a 2010 American computer-animated/live action fantasy adventure film directed by Tim Burton, written by Linda Woolverton, and released by Walt Disney Pictures...
- As Cheshire Cat (Voice)
- 2011: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is an upcoming 2011 British-American action mystery film directed by Guy Ritchie and produced by Joel Silver, Lionel Wigram, Susan Downey, and Dan Lin. It is a sequel to the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes, based on the character of the same name created by Sir Arthur...
- As Mycroft Holmes
- 2012: The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - As The Master of Laketown
Radio
Fry came to the attention of radio listeners with the 1986 creation of his supposed alter-ego,
Donald TrefusisProfessor Donald Cornwallis Treadway Trefusis is an eccentric fictional character created by Stephen Fry.He initially appeared as an occasional contributor of "wireless essays" to Ned Sherrin's BBC Radio 4 programme Loose Ends in 1986...
, whose "wireless essays" were broadcast on the BBC Radio 4 programme
Loose EndsLoose Ends is a British radio programme originally broadcast on Saturday mornings, and then transmitted early Saturday evenings from 1998 by BBC Radio 4. It was hosted by Ned Sherrin until he became ill in late 2006 with a reported throat infection, and later throat cancer...
. In the 1980s he starred as David Lander in four series of the BBC Radio 4 show
Delve SpecialDelve Special was a UK BBC Radio 4 comedy starring Stephen Fry as investigative reporter David Lander. It ran for four series from 1984 to 1987, each series being four episodes long. It was written by Tony Sarchet and produced by Paul Mayhew-Archer...
, written by
Tony SarchetTony Sarchet is a British television and radio writer for alternative comedy shows.Sarchet studied chemistry at University College Oxford, where he was a member of the University College Players and wrote a review called Gargoyles at the Oxford Playhouse with John Albery and Graham Wall in 1978.He...
, which became a six part Channel 4 series
This is David LanderThis is David Lander was a TV show that parodies Roger Cook style door-stepping investigative journalism shows, starring Stephen Fry as David Lander and written by Tony Sarchet....
in 1988. In 1988, Fry wrote and presented a six-part comedy series entitled
Saturday Night FrySaturday Night Fry was a six-part comedy series on BBC Radio 4, first broadcast between the 30th of April and the 4th of June 1988. Episode One had previously been broadcast as a pilot on 19 December 1987, under the title 'Fry on Saturday'....
; frequent radio appearances have ensued (notably on panel games
Just a Minute and
I'm Sorry I Haven't a ClueI'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, sometimes abbreviated to ISIHAC or Clue, is a BBC radio comedy panel game broadcast since 11 April 1972 at the rate of one or two series each year , transmitted on BBC Radio 4, with occasional repeats on BBC Radio 4 Extra and the BBC's World Service...
). In 2000, he began starring as Charles Prentiss in the Radio 4 comedy
Absolute Power, reprising the role for three further series on radio and two on television. In 2002, Fry voiced
Winnie-the-PoohWinnie-the-Pooh, also called Pooh Bear, is a fictional anthropomorphic bear created by A. A. Milne. The first collection of stories about the character was the book Winnie-the-Pooh , and this was followed by The House at Pooh Corner...
and was one of the narrators in
Winnie-the-Pooh and
The House at Pooh Corner, both written by A.A. Milne. He presented a weekly, 20 x 120-minute series, "The Incomplete and Utter History of Classical Music", a 'witty guide' to the genre over the past 1,000 years, on
Classic FMClassic FM, one of the United Kingdom's three Independent National Radio stations, broadcasts classical music in a popular and accessible style.-Overview:...
.
In 2007, he hosted
Current Puns, an exploration of wordplay, and
Radio 4: This Is Your Life, to celebrate the radio station's 40th anniversary. He also interviewed
Tony BlairAnthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...
as part of a series of podcasts released by
10 Downing Street10 Downing Street, colloquially known in the United Kingdom as "Number 10", is the headquarters of Her Majesty's Government and the official residence and office of the First Lord of the Treasury, who is now always the Prime Minister....
.
In February 2008, Fry began presenting podcasts entitled
Stephen Fry's PodgramsStephen Fry's Podgrams is a series of podcasts performed and recorded by British comedian and author Stephen Fry. First made downloadable on 20 February 2008, the series of podgrams is a collection of Fry's writings, speeches and collective thoughts...
, in which he recounts his life and recent experiences. In July 2008, Fry appeared as himself in
I Love Stephen Fry, an
Afternoon Play for Radio 4 written by former
Fry and Laurie script editor
Jon CanterJon Canter is an English television comedy writer for Lenny Henry and other leading comedians. Canter was born and brought up in the Jewish community of Golders Green, North London and studied law at the University of Cambridge where he became President of Footlights.After a spell in advertising...
.
Since August 2008 he has presented
Fry's English DelightFry's English Delight is a BBC Radio 4 documentary series in which language enthusiast Stephen Fry explores various aspects of the English language.The title is a pun on the chocolate sweet Fry's Turkish Delight.- Episode guide :-Audio Books:...
, a series on BBC Radio 4 about the English language. As of 2011, it has been running for four series and 15 episodes.
In the summer 2009 series of
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, Fry was one of a trio of hosts replacing Humphrey Lyttelton (the others being
Jack DeeJames Andrew Innes "Jack" Dee is an English stand-up comedian, actor and writer known for his sardonic, curmudgeonly, and deadpan style.-Early life:...
and
Rob BrydonRob Brydon is a BAFTA-nominated Welsh actor, comedian, radio and television presenter, singer and impressionist...
).
He also lends his voice to the introduction and stings for
Phill JupitusPhillip Christopher Jupitus is an English stand-up and improvised comedian, actor, performance poet, musician and podcaster....
' fortnightly podcast,
The Perfect Ten.
Theatre
Fry wrote a play entitled
Latin! or Tobacco and BoysLatin! or Tobacco and Boys is a play by Stephen Fry, written in 1979. It was first performed at 'The Playroom', an L-shaped space in St Edwards Passage that belonged to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge...
for the 1980 Edinburgh Festival, where it won the Fringe First prize. It had a revival in 2009 at London's
Cock Tavern TheatreThe Cock Tavern Theatre was a multi-award winning pub theatre located in the heart of Kilburn in the north-west of London. The venue specialised in new works and critical revivals...
, directed by Adam Spreadbury-Maher.
The Cellar Tapes, the Footlights Revue of 1981, won the Perrier Comedy Award. In 1984, Fry adapted the hugely successful 1930s musical,
Me and My GirlMe and My Girl is a musical with book and lyrics by Douglas Furber and L. Arthur Rose and music by Noel Gay. It takes place in the late 1930s in Hampshire, Mayfair, and Lambeth....
, for the West End, where it ran for eight years.
He was also cast in a lead role in Simon Gray's 1995 play,
Cell MatesCell Mates is a play by Simon Gray. It opened at the Albery Theatre, London on 17 February 1995, starring Stephen Fry and Rik Mayall, with Gray himself directing. Despite having performed successfully for several weeks during the pre-London warm up dates in Guildford and Watford, Fry left the...
, which he left three days into the West End run, pleading stage fright. He later recalled the incident as a hypomanic episode in his documentary, The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive on
bipolar disorderBipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...
. In 2007, Fry wrote a Christmas pantomime,
Cinderella, which ran at London's Old Vic Theatre.
Fry is a long-time fan of the 1960s anarchic British musical comedy group, the
Bonzo Dog Band and, particularly, of its eccentric front man, the late
Vivian StanshallVivian Stanshall was an English singer-songwriter, painter, musician, author, poet and wit, best known for his work with the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, for his surreal exploration of the British upper classes in Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, and for narrating Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells.-The great...
. Fry helped to fund an ill-fated 1988 London re-staging of Stanshall's acclaimed
Stinkfoot, a Comic OperaStinkfoot, a Comic Opera is an English musical with book, music, and lyrics by Vivian Stanshall and Ki Longfellow-Stanshall written for the Crackpot Theatre Company aboard the Old Profanity Showboat in Bristol, England. The show is based on a series of tales written by Longfellow about Stinkfoot,...
, written by Vivian and
Ki Longfellow-StanshallKi Longfellow is an American novelist, playwright, theatrical producer, theater director and entrepreneur. In Britain, as the widow of Vivian Stanshall, she is well known as the guardian of his artistic heritage, but elsewhere she is best known for her own work, especially the novel The Secret...
for the
BristolBristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
-based Old Profanity Showboat. Fry performed several of Stanshall's numbers as part of the Bonzo's 26 January 2006 reunion concert at the
London AstoriaThe London Astoria was a music venue, located at 157 Charing Cross Road, in London, England. It had been leased and run by Festival Republic since 2000. It was closed on 15 January 2009 and has since been demolished...
. He also appears as a shiny New Millennium Bonzo on their post-reunion album,
Pour l'Amour des ChiensPour l'Amour Des Chiens is the first all new studio album by The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band in 35 years...
, including his reciting of a recipe for "Salmon Proust", playing a butler in "Hawkeye the Gnu", and voicing ads for the fictitious "Fiasco" stores.
Following three one-man shows in Australia, Fry announced a "sort of stand-up" performance at
The Royal Albert HallThe Royal Albert Hall is a concert hall situated on the northern edge of the South Kensington area, in the City of Westminster, London, England, best known for holding the annual summer Proms concerts since 1941....
in London for September 2010.
Audio books
Stephen Fry has been the reader for the British versions of all of J.K.Rowling's
Harry PotterHarry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
series of audio books. He discussed this project in an interview with J.K. Rowling in 2005.
Fry has also been the reader for
Douglas AdamsDouglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
's
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The GalaxyThe Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy series created by Douglas Adams. Originally a radio comedy broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978, it was later adapted to other formats, and over several years it gradually became an international multi-media phenomenon...
film tie-in edition. He has also made recordings of his own books, such as
The Stars' Tennis BallsThe Stars' Tennis Balls is a psychological thriller novel by Stephen Fry, first published in 2000. In the United States, the title was changed to Revenge...
; and works by
Roald DahlRoald Dahl was a British novelist, short story writer, fighter pilot and screenwriter.Born in Wales to Norwegian parents, he served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, in which he became a flying ace and intelligence agent, rising to the rank of Wing Commander...
,
Michael BondThomas Michael Bond, OBE is an English author, most celebrated for his Paddington Bear series of books.-Life:Bond was educated at Presentation College, a Catholic school in Reading...
,
A. A. MilneAlan Alexander Milne was an English author, best known for his books about the teddy bear Winnie-the-Pooh and for various children's poems. Milne was a noted writer, primarily as a playwright, before the huge success of Pooh overshadowed all his previous work.-Biography:A. A...
, and
Anthony BuckeridgeAnthony Malcolm Buckeridge OBE was an English author, best known for his Jennings and Rex Milligan series of children's books...
.
Video games
Fry's distinctive voice has been featured in a number of video games, including an appearance as Reaver, a main character in
Lionhead StudiosLionhead Studios is a British computer game development company led by industry veteran Peter Molyneux, and acquired by Microsoft Game Studios in April 2006. Lionhead started as a breakaway from the developer Bullfrog, which was also founded by Molyneux. Lionhead's first game was Black & White, a...
games
Fable II and
Fable IIIFable III is the third video game in the Fable series of action role-playing games . The game was developed by Lionhead Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios for Microsoft Windows and Xbox 360. The story focuses on the player character's struggle to overthrow the King of Albion by...
, and as the narrator in
LittleBigPlanetLittleBigPlanet, commonly abbreviated LBP, is a puzzle platformer video game, based on user-generated content, for the PlayStation 3 first announced on 7 March 2007, by Phil Harrison at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, California...
and
its sequelLittleBigPlanet 2 is a puzzle platformer video game, centred around user-generated content. The game is developed by Media Molecule, published by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe for PlayStation 3 and was originally scheduled for release in November 2010 but was delayed until January 2011...
on
PlayStation 3The is the third home video game console produced by Sony Computer Entertainment and the successor to the PlayStation 2 as part of the PlayStation series. The PlayStation 3 competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
and
PlayStation PortableThe is a handheld game console manufactured and marketed by Sony Corporation Development of the console was announced during E3 2003, and it was unveiled on , 2004, at a Sony press conference before E3 2004...
. He also served as narrator on the first four
Harry PotterHarry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
games (
Philosopher's StoneHarry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, also known as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in North America, is an Electronic Arts multi-platform action-adventure video game developed by KnowWonder, Warthog, Griptonite, Argonaut, Eurocom and Westlake Interactive...
,
Chamber of SecretsHarry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets is a action-adventure game published by Electronic Arts and developed by both EA's internal development team and Eurocom for the PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube and Game Boy Advance systems. It was simultaneously co-developed by Amaze Entertainment for...
,
Prisoner of AzkabanHarry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is a computer and video game that was released concurrently with the film release of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. Both the game and the film were based on J. K...
and the
Goblet of FireHarry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a computer and video game that was released right before the film release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Both the game and the movie are based on J. K...
).
Advertisements
Fry has lent himself and his voice to many advertisements, starting with an appearance as "Count Ivan Skavinsky Skavar" in a 1982 advert for Whitbread Best Bitter. Fry has said in his memoirs that after receiving his payment for this work – £25,000 – he has never subsequently experienced "what one could call serious money troubles". He has since appeared in adverts for products such as Marks and Spencer,
TwiningsTwinings is a marketer of tea based in Andover, Hampshire, England.- History :The founder of Twinings, Thomas Twining, opened the first known tea room, at 216 Strand, London, in 1706, which is still operating today. The firm's logo, created in 1787, is one of the world's oldest in continuous use...
,
KencoKenco is a brand of instant coffee, and roast & ground coffee distributed by Kraft Foods in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. Originally known as the Kenya Coffee Company, they started distributing coffee to Britain in 1923...
,
Vauxhall-Demography:Many Vauxhall residents live in social housing. There are several gentrified areas, and areas of terraced townhouses on streets such as Fentiman Road and Heyford Avenue have higher property values in the private market, however by far the most common type of housing stock within...
,
Direct LineDirect Line is part of the RBS Insurance division of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group that specialises in selling insurance and other financial services over the phone and internet....
,
CalpolCalpol is a brand of children's medicine sold in the UK, Ireland, India, Cyprus, Hong Kong and the Philippines. The main product is a paracetamol suspension. It is usually a coloured syrup with a sweet taste, and is used to treat fever and pain...
,
HeinekenHeineken is a Dutch beer which has been brewed by Heineken International since 1873. It is available in a 4.6% alcohol variety in countries such as Ireland. It is the flagship product of the Heineken company and is made of purified water, malted barley, hops, and yeast. In 1886 H...
,
Alliance & LeicesterAlliance & Leicester was a former UK-based bank and PLC, which in later years operated as a trading name of Santander UK before being rebranded as Santander. Alliance & Leicester was legally acquired in May 2010 by Santander UK, and was fully incorporated by 2011...
, After Eights, Trebor, Panama cigars and Orange Mobile.
Literature
Since the publication of his first novel,
The Liar (1991), Fry has written three additional novels, several non-fiction works and two volumes of autobiography.
Making History (1997) is partly set in an alternative universe where Adolf Hitler's father is made infertile and his replacement proves a rather more effective Führer. The book won the
Sidewise Award for Alternate HistoryThe Sidewise Awards for Alternate History were established in 1995 to recognize the best alternate history stories and novels of the year.The awards take their name from the 1934 short story "Sidewise in Time" by Murray Leinster, in which a strange storm causes portions of Earth to swap places with...
.
The HippopotamusThe Hippopotamus is a novel by Stephen Fry, first published in 1994. It is written, in part, as an epistolary novel.-Plot summary:The "hippo" of the title is Edward Lennox Wallace, an aging, lecherous, one-time hell-raising poet, reduced by diminishing poetic talent to working as a...
(1994) is about Edward (Ted/Tedward) Wallace and his stay at his old friend Lord Logan's country manor in Norfolk.
The Stars' Tennis BallsThe Stars' Tennis Balls is a psychological thriller novel by Stephen Fry, first published in 2000. In the United States, the title was changed to Revenge...
(2000) is a modern retelling of
The Count of Monte CristoThe Count of Monte Cristo is an adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas. It is often considered to be, along with The Three Musketeers, Dumas's most popular work. He completed the work in 1844...
. Fry's book,
The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet WithinThe Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within is a book by author, actor, comedian and director Stephen Fry about writing poetry. Fry covers metre, rhyme, many common and arcane poetic forms, and offers poetry exercises, contrasting modern and classic poets.Fry's starting point can be summed up...
, is a guide to writing poetry.
When writing a book review for
TatlerTatler has been the name of several British journals and magazines, each of which has viewed itself as the successor of the original literary and society journal founded by Richard Steele in 1709. The current incarnation, founded in 1901, is a glossy magazine published by Condé Nast Publications...
, Fry wrote under a
nom de plumeA pen name, nom de plume, or literary double, is a pseudonym adopted by an author. A pen name may be used to make the author's name more distinctive, to disguise his or her gender, to distance an author from some or all of his or her works, to protect the author from retribution for his or her...
, Williver Hendry, editor of
A Most Peculiar Friendship: The Correspondence of Lord Alfred Douglas and Jack Dempsey, a field close to Fry's heart as an Oscar Wilde enthusiast. Once a columnist in
The Listener and
The Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
, he now writes a weekly technology column in the Saturday edition of
The GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
. His
blogA blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
attracted more than 300,000 visitors in its first two weeks of existence.
On 26 May 2009, Fry unveiled
The Dongle of Donald TrefusisThe Dongle of Donald Trefusis is "a mixture of podcast, audio book and radio monologue" written and read by Stephen Fry. It stars Fry as himself, who receives an inheritance from his former university tutor, Donald Trefusis, who has recently died. The inheritance includes a USB drive or "dongle",...
, an audiobook series following the character Donald Trefusis (a character from Fry's novel
The Liar and from the BBC Radio 4 series
Loose EndsLoose Ends is a British radio programme originally broadcast on Saturday mornings, and then transmitted early Saturday evenings from 1998 by BBC Radio 4. It was hosted by Ned Sherrin until he became ill in late 2006 with a reported throat infection, and later throat cancer...
), set over 12 episodes. After its release, it reached No. 1 on the UK Album Chart list.
On 2 January 2010 it was announced that Fry was "switching off his connections with the outside world" in order to complete a second volume of his autobiography.
Fry's use of the word "luvvie" in
The Guardian on 2 April 1988 is given by the
Oxford English DictionaryThe Oxford English Dictionary , published by the Oxford University Press, is the self-styled premier dictionary of the English language. Two fully bound print editions of the OED have been published under its current name, in 1928 and 1989. The first edition was published in twelve volumes , and...
as the earliest recorded use of the word.
Football
On 13 August 2010, Fry joined the Board of Directors at
Norwich City Football ClubNorwich City Football Club is an English professional football club based in Norwich, Norfolk. As of the 2011–12 season, Norwich City are again playing in the Premier League after a six-year absence, having finished as runner up in the Championship in 2010–11 and winning automatic promotion.The...
. A lifelong fan of "the Canaries" and regular visitor to
Carrow RoadCarrow Road is a football stadium in Norwich, England, and is the home of Norwich City Football Club. The stadium is located toward the easterly end of the city, not far from Norwich railway station and the River Wensum....
, he said on being appointed "Truly this is one of the most exciting days of my life and I am as proud and pleased as I could be."
Twitter
Fry wields a considerable amount of influence through his use of the social networking site
TwitterTwitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
. He is frequently asked to promote various charities and causes, often inadvertently causing their websites to crash because of the sheer volume of traffic generated by his large number of followers, as Fry notes on his website: "Four thousand hits a second all diving down the pipeline at the same time for minutes on end." Fry uses his influence to recommend underexposed musicians and authors (which often see large increases in web hits and sales) and to spread contemporary issues in the world of media and politics, notably the dropping of an
injunctionAn injunction is an equitable remedy in the form of a court order that requires a party to do or refrain from doing certain acts. A party that fails to comply with an injunction faces criminal or civil penalties and may have to pay damages or accept sanctions...
against
The Guardian and the lambasting of
Daily MailThe Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
columnist
Jan Moir over her article on deceased
BoyzoneBoyzone are an Irish boy band comprising Keith Duffy, Mikey Graham, Ronan Keating,Shane Lynch, and formerly Stephen Gately. Boyzone have 19 singles in the top 40 UK charts and 21 singles in the Ire charts. The group currently have 6 UK number one singles and 9 number one singles in Ireland with 12...
member
Stephen GatelyStephen Patrick David Gately was an Irish pop singer–songwriter, actor, dancer, musician and author, who, with Ronan Keating, was one of two lead singers of the pop group Boyzone. All of Boyzone's studio albums hit number one in the United Kingdom, their third being their most successful...
.
In October 2009 Fry sparked debate amongst users again when he announced an intention to leave the social networking site after criticism from another user on Twitter. He retracted the intention the next day. In October 2010, Fry left Twitter for a few days following press criticism of a quote taken from an interview he had given, with a farewell message of "Bye bye". After returning, Fry explained that he had left Twitter to "avoid being sympathised with or told about an article I would otherwise never have got wind of".
In November 2009 Fry's Twitter account reached 1,000,000 followers. He commemorated the million followers milestone with a humorous video blog in which a 'Step Hen Fry' clone speaks from the year 2034 where
MySpaceMyspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
,
FacebookFacebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
and
TwitterTwitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
have combined to form 'Twit on MyFace'.
In November 2010 Fry achieved 2,000,000 followers on Twitter. He welcomed his 2 millionth follower, mobijack, with a blog entry describing Fry's view of the pros and cons of this form of communication.
Acclaim
In 1995, Fry was presented with an honorary doctorate from the
University of DundeeThe University of Dundee is a university based in the city and Royal burgh of Dundee on eastern coast of the central Lowlands of Scotland and with a small number of institutions elsewhere....
, which named their main
Students' AssociationDundee University Students' Association is the students' association, legal representative and students' union for matriculated students of the University of Dundee....
bar after his novel
The Liar. Fry is a patron of its Lip Theatre Company. He also served two consecutive terms—1992 to 1995 and 1995 to 1998—as the student-elected
Rector of the University of DundeeThe Rector of the University of Dundee is elected by the matriculated students of the University. From 1967 to 2010 the Rector was automatically a full member of the University Court...
. Fry is considered to have been one of the most popular rectors the University has had, and was noted for his work to promote the University and his efforts to represent its students on the
University CourtA University Court is an administrative body of a university in the United Kingdom. In England's Oxbridge such a Court carries out limited judicial functions; whereas in Scotland it is a University's supreme governing body, analogous to a Board of Directors or a Board of Trustees.-England:In the...
. Such was his popularity, he was unopposed when he sought re-election to office in 1995, and by the time he completed his second term in office he had won the widespread admiration of the University's staff and students. He was awarded the AoC Gold Award in 2004, and was entered into their hall of fame. Fry was also awarded an honorary degree from
Anglia Ruskin UniversityAnglia Ruskin University is one of the largest universities in Eastern England, United Kingdom, with a total student population of around 30,000.-History:...
of Cambridge, England in 2005. and was also made honorary president of the Cambridge University Quiz Society and honorary fellow of
Queens' College, CambridgeQueens' College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college was founded in 1448 by Margaret of Anjou , and refounded in 1465 by Elizabeth Woodville...
. He is a Patron of the Norwich Playhouse theatre and a Vice President of The Noël Coward Society. Fry was the last person to be named
Pipe Smoker of the YearPipe Smoker of the Year was an award given out annually by the British Pipesmokers' Council, to honour a famous pipe-smoking individual. The award was discontinued in 2004 because its organisers feared it fell foul of laws banning all advertising and promotion of tobacco.-Pipe Smokers of the Year:...
before the award was discontinued.
On 13 July 2010, he was made an honorary fellow of
Cardiff UniversityCardiff University is a leading research university located in the Cathays Park area of Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom. It received its Royal charter in 1883 and is a member of the Russell Group of Universities. The university is consistently recognised as providing high quality research-based...
and on 28 January 2011 he was awarded an honorary doctorate at the
University of SussexThe University of Sussex is an English public research university situated next to the East Sussex village of Falmer, within the city of Brighton and Hove. The University received its Royal Charter in August 1961....
for his work campaigning for people suffering from mental health problems, bipolar disorder and HIV.
In December 2006 he was ranked sixth for the BBC's Top Living Icon Award, was featured on
The Culture ShowThe Culture Show is a weekly BBC Two Arts magazine programme. It is broadcast in the UK on Thursday nights at 7pm, focusing on the best of the week's arts and culture news, covering books, art, film, architecture, music, visual fashion and the performing arts...
, and was voted
Most Intelligent Man on Television by readers of
Radio TimesRadio Times is a UK weekly television and radio programme listings magazine, owned by the BBC. It has been published since 1923 by BBC Magazines, which also provides an on-line listings service under the same title...
. The
Independent on Sunday Pink List named Fry the second most influential gay person in
BritainThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
in May 2007. He had taken the twenty-third position on the list the previous year. Later the same month he was announced as the 2007
Mind Champion of the Year in recognition of the awareness raised about bipolar disorder by his documentary
The Secret Life of a Manic Depressive. Fry was also nominated in "Best Entertainment Performance" for
QI and "Best Factual Series" for
Secret Life of the Manic Depressive at the 2007
British Academy Television AwardsThe British Academy Television Awards are presented in an annual award show hosted by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts . They have been awarded annually since 1954, and are analogous to the Emmy Awards in the United States.-Background:...
. That same year,
Broadcast magazine listed Fry at number four in its "Hot 100" list of influential on-screen performers, describing him as a
polymathA polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas. In less formal terms, a polymath may simply be someone who is very knowledgeable...
and a "
national treasureThe idea of national treasure, like national epics and national anthems, is part of the language of Romantic nationalism, which arose in the late 18th century and 19th centuries. Nationalism is an ideology which supports the nation as the fundamental unit of human social life, which includes shared...
". He was also granted a lifetime achievement award at the
British Comedy AwardsThe British Comedy Awards is an annual awards ceremony in the United Kingdom celebrating notable comedians and entertainment performances of the previous year.-History:...
on 5 December 2007 and the Special Recognition Award at the
National Television AwardsThe National Television Awards is a British television awards ceremony, broadcast by the ITV network and initiated in 1995. The National Television Awards are the most prominent ceremony for which the results are voted on by the general public. Because of the way the awards are decided, winners are...
on 20 January 2010.
BBC FourBBC Four is a British television network operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation and available to digital television viewers on Freeview, IPTV, satellite and cable....
dedicated two nights of programming to Fry on 17 and 18 August 2007, in celebration of his 50th birthday. The first night, comprising programs featuring Fry, began with a sixty-minute documentary entitled
Stephen Fry: 50 Not OutStephen Fry: 50 Not Out was a one-off, one-hour documentary/biography about Stephen Fry released in 2007 by the BBC, celebrating Stephen Fry's fiftieth birthday....
. The second night was composed of programs selected by Fry, as well as a 60-minute interview with
Mark LawsonMark Gerard Lawson is an English journalist, broadcaster and author.-Life and career:Born in Hendon, London, Lawson was raised in Yorkshire and is a Leeds United fan. He was educated at St Columba's College in St Albans and took a degree in English at University College London, where his lecturers...
and a half-hour special,
Stephen Fry: Guilty. The weekend programming proved such a ratings hit for BBC Four that it was repeated on BBC Two on 16 and 17 September 2007.
In 2011, he was the subject of
Molly LewisMolly Lewis is an American Internet musician who is known for her ukulele playing. She plays both covers and original songs. Her original music consists of comedic songs about pop culture topics that trend towards the nerdy. She is currently signed with DFTBA Records through which she released her...
's song
An Open Letter to Stephen Fry, in which the singer jokingly offers herself to be the surrogate mother for his child. In February 2011, Fry was awarded the Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism by the Humanist Chaplaincy at Harvard University, the Harvard Secular Society and the American Humanist Association.
Views on religion
Fry has repeatedly expressed opposition to organised religion and has identified himself as an atheist, while declaring some sympathy for the ancient Greek belief in capricious gods. In his first autobiography he wrote, "I knew I couldn't believe in God, because I was fundamentally Hellenic in my outlook." He has accepted that religion can have positive effects, "Sometimes belief means credulity, sometimes an expression of faith and hope which even the most sceptical atheist such as myself cannot but find inspiring." In 2009 he and
Christopher HitchensChristopher Eric Hitchens is an Anglo-American author and journalist whose books, essays, and journalistic career span more than four decades. He has been a columnist and literary critic at The Atlantic, Vanity Fair, Slate, World Affairs, The Nation, Free Inquiry, and became a media fellow at the...
participated in an "
Intelligence SquaredIntelligence Squared is a UK based organisation that stages debates around the world. It began in London, but now operates globally in the US, Australia, Hong Kong, Ukraine and Nigeria...
" debate in which they argued against
Ann WiddecombeAnn Noreen Widdecombe is a former British Conservative Party politician and has been a novelist since 2000. She is a Privy Councillor and was the Member of Parliament for Maidstone from 1987 to 1997 and for Maidstone and The Weald from 1997 to 2010. She was a social conservative and a member of...
and Archbishop
John OnaiyekanJohn Olorunfemi Onaiyekan is the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Abuja and the President of the Christian Association of Nigeria. He was previously President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Nigeria and Bishop of Ilorin....
, who supported the view that the Catholic Church was a force for good. Fry and Hitchens argued that the church did more harm than good. Fry attacked the Catholic Church's teachings on sexuality and denounced its wealth.
On 15 September 2010, Fry, along with 54 other public figures, signed an open letter published in
The GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, stating their opposition to
Pope Benedict XVI's visit to the United KingdomPope Benedict XVI's visit to the United Kingdom from 16 to 19 September 2010 was the first state visit by a pope to the United Kingdom...
being a state visit.
On 22 February 2011, Fry was presented with the Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism by the Humanist Chaplaincy at
Harvard UniversityHarvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
, joining a list of previous honorees including novelist
Salman Rushdie, screenwriter
Joss WhedonJoseph Hill "Joss" Whedon is an American screenwriter, executive producer, director, comic book writer, occasional composer and actor, founder of Mutant Enemy Productions and co-creator of Bellwether Pictures...
, and Mythbusters
Adam SavageAdam Whitney Savage is an American industrial design and special effects designer/fabricator, actor, educator, and co-host of the Discovery Channel television series MythBusters. His model work has appeared in major films, including Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones and The Matrix...
and
Jamie HynemanJames Franklin "Jamie" Hyneman is an American special effects expert, best known for being the co-host of the television series MythBusters. He is also the owner of M5 Industries, the special effects workshop where MythBusters is filmed...
.
Personal life
Fry struggled to keep his
homosexualityHomosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
secretCloseted and in the closet are metaphors used to describe lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning and intersex people who have not disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity and aspects thereof, including sexual identity and sexual behavior.-Background:In late 20th...
during his teenage years at public school, and has claimed
not to have engaged in sexual activityCelibacy is a personal commitment to avoiding sexual relations, in particular a vow from marriage. Typically celibacy involves avoiding all romantic relationships of any kind. An individual may choose celibacy for religious reasons, such as is the case for priests in some religions, for reasons of...
for 16 years from 1979 until 1995. When asked when he first acknowledged his
sexualitySexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...
, Fry quipped: "I suppose it all began when I came out of the womb. I looked back up at my mother and thought to myself, 'That's the last time I'm going up one of those.'" Fry was in a 14-year relationship with Daniel Cohen, which ended in 2010. Stephen Fry has stated that he is 90% homosexual, but has been attracted to women on occasion.
Fry has a home in
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and another in Hollywood. He also has a home near
King's LynnKing's Lynn is a sea port and market town in the ceremonial county of Norfolk in the East of England. It is situated north of London and west of Norwich. The population of the town is 42,800....
, Norfolk. When in London, Fry drives a black
TX4The TX4 is a purpose built taxicab manufactured by Manganese Bronze Holdings / LTC The London Taxi Company, formerly LTI London Taxis International. It is the latest in a long line of purpose-built taxis manufactured by LTC...
London cab.
Fry was an active supporter of the
Labour PartyThe Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
for many years, and appeared in a
party political broadcastA party political broadcast is a short television or radio broadcast made by a political party....
on its behalf with Hugh Laurie and
Michelle CollinsMichelle Danielle Collins is a British actress best known for her roles on television in the BBC soap opera EastEnders, as Cindy Beale, Coronation Street as Stella Price, and BBC dramas Sunburn and Two Thousand Acres of Sky...
in November 1993. Despite this, he did not vote in the
2005 General ElectionThe United Kingdom general election of 2005 was held on Thursday, 5 May 2005 to elect 646 members to the British House of Commons. The Labour Party under Tony Blair won its third consecutive victory, but with a majority of 66, reduced from 160....
because of the stance of both the Labour and
ConservativeThe Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
parties with regard to the
Iraq War. Despite his praising of the Blair/Brown government for social reform, Fry has been critical of the Labour Party's "
Third WayThe Third Way refers to various political positions which try to reconcile right-wing and left-wing politics by advocating a varying synthesis of right-wing economic and left-wing social policies. Third Way approaches are commonly viewed from within the first- and second-way perspectives as...
" concept. Fry appeared in literature to support changing the British electoral system from
first-past-the-postFirst-past-the-post voting refers to an election won by the candidate with the most votes. The winning potato candidate does not necessarily receive an absolute majority of all votes cast.-Overview:...
to
alternative voteInstant-runoff voting , also known as preferential voting, the alternative vote and ranked choice voting, is a voting system used to elect one winner. Voters rank candidates in order of preference, and their ballots are counted as one vote for their first choice candidate. If a candidate secures a...
for electing Members of Parliament to the House of Commons in the Alternative Vote referendum in 2011.
He is on cordial terms with
Prince CharlesPrince Charles, Prince of Wales is the heir apparent and eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Since 1958 his major title has been His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales. In Scotland he is additionally known as The Duke of Rothesay...
(despite a mild parody Fry performed in his role of
King Charles ICharles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...
in the comedy programme
Blackadder: The Cavalier YearsBlackadder: The Cavalier Years is a 15 minute one-off edition of Blackadder set during the English Civil War, shown as part of Comic Relief's Red Nose Day on Friday 5 February . The episode included series regulars Rowan Atkinson as Sir Edmund Blackadder, Tony Robinson as Baldrick, and Stephen Fry...
), through his work with the Prince's Trust. He attended the wedding of the Prince of Wales to
Camilla Parker BowlesCamilla, Duchess of Cornwall is the second wife of Charles, Prince of Wales, and is the current holder of the titles of Princess of Wales, Duchess of Cornwall, Duchess of Rothesay and Countess of Chester...
in 2005.
Fry is a friend of British comedian and actor (and
Blackadder co-star)
Rowan Atkinson Rowan Sebastian Atkinson is a British actor, comedian, and screenwriter. He is most famous for his work on the satirical sketch comedy show Not The Nine O'Clock News, and the sitcoms Blackadder, Mr. Bean and The Thin Blue Line...
and was best man at Atkinson's wedding to Sunetra Sastry at the
Russian Tea RoomThe Russian Tea Room is a restaurant in New York City, located at 150 West 57th Street between Carnegie Hall Tower and Metropolitan Tower.-History:...
in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. Fry was a friend of British actor
John MillsSir John Mills CBE , born Lewis Ernest Watts Mills, was an English actor who made more than 120 films in a career spanning seven decades.-Life and career:...
.
His best friend is Hugh Laurie, whom he met while both were at Cambridge and with whom he has collaborated many times over the years. He was best man at Laurie's wedding and is godfather to all three of his children.
A fan of cricket, Fry has claimed to be related to former England cricketer C.B. Fry, and was recently interviewed for the
Ashes Fever DVD, reporting on
EnglandThe England and Wales cricket team is a cricket team which represents England and Wales. Until 1992 it also represented Scotland. Since 1 January 1997 it has been governed by the England and Wales Cricket Board , having been previously governed by Marylebone Cricket Club from 1903 until the end...
's victory over Australia in the 2005 Ashes series. Regarding football, he is a supporter of
Norwich CityNorwich City Football Club is an English professional football club based in Norwich, Norfolk. As of the 2011–12 season, Norwich City are again playing in the Premier League after a six-year absence, having finished as runner up in the Championship in 2010–11 and winning automatic promotion.The...
(as mentioned in
Ashes Fever), and is a regular visitor to Carrow Road. Fry's sister,
Jo CrockerJo Crocker is a film director and actress. She is the sister of the actor Stephen Fry and as such has starred as herself in the Emmy Award-winning Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive....
, was
assistant directorThe role of an Assistant director include tracking daily progress against the filming production schedule, arranging logistics, preparing daily call sheets, checking cast and crew, maintaining order on the set. They also have to take care of health and safety of the crew...
on
Bright Young ThingsBright Young Things is a 2003 British drama film written and directed by Stephen Fry. The screenplay, based on the 1930 novel Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh, provides satirical social commentary about the Bright Young People: young and carefree London aristocrats and bohemians, as well as society in...
.
He has been described as "deeply dippy for all things digital", claims to have bought the third
MacintoshThe Macintosh , or Mac, is a series of several lines of personal computers designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. The first Macintosh was introduced by Apple's then-chairman Steve Jobs on January 24, 1984; it was the first commercially successful personal computer to feature a mouse and a...
computer sold in the UK (his friend
Douglas AdamsDouglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
bought the first two) and jokes that he has never encountered a
smartphoneA smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone or camera...
that he has not bought. He counts
WikipediaWikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
among his favourite websites "because I like to find out that I died, and that I'm currently in a
balletBallet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with...
in
ChinaChina , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
, and all the other very accurate and important things that Wikipedia brings us all."
Fry has a long interest in Internet production, including his own website since 1997. His current site,
The New Adventures of Mr Stephen Fry, has existed since 2002 and has attracted many visitors following his first blog in September 2007, which comprised a 6,500 word "blessay" on smartphones. In February 2008, Fry launched his private podcast series,
Stephen Fry's Podgrams, and a forum, including discussions on depression and activities in which Fry is involved. The website content is created by Stephen Fry and produced by Andrew Sampson. Fry is also a supporter of GNU and the
Free Software FoundationThe Free Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation founded by Richard Stallman on 4 October 1985 to support the free software movement, a copyleft-based movement which aims to promote the universal freedom to create, distribute and modify computer software...
. For the 25th anniversary of the GNU operating system, Fry appeared in a video explaining some of the philosophy behind GNU by likening it to the sharing found in science. In October 2008, he began posting to his Twitter stream, which he regularly updates. On 16 May 2009, he celebrated the 500,000-follower mark: "Bless my soul 500k followers. And I love you all. Well, all except that silly one. And that's not you."
On 30 April 2008, Fry signed an open letter, published in
The GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
newspaper by some well known Jewish personalities, stating their opposition to celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the State of
IsraelThe State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. Furthermore, he is a signatory member of the British
Jews for Justice for PalestiniansJews for Justice for Palestinians is a pressure group based in the United Kingdom that advocates human and civil rights, and economic and political freedom, for the Palestinian people...
organisation, which campaigns for Palestinian rights.
A year later,
The Guardian published a letter from Fry addressing his younger self, explaining how his future is soon to unfold, reflecting on the positive progression towards
gayGay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
acceptance and openness around him, and yet not everywhere, while warning on how "the cruel, hypocritical and loveless hand of religion and
absolutismThe term Absolutism may refer to:* Absolute idealism, an ontologically monistic philosophy attributed to G.W.F. Hegel. It is Hegel's account of how being is ultimately comprehensible as an all-inclusive whole...
has fallen on the world once more".
Fry was among over 100 signatories to a statement published by
Sense About ScienceSense About Science is a British charity that promotes the public understanding of science. Sense About Science was conceived in 2002 by Lord Taverne, Bridget Ogilvie and others to promote respect for scientific evidence and good science. Sense About Science was established as a charitable trust in...
on 4 June 2009, condemning British libel laws and their use to "severely curtail the right to free speech on a matter of public interest."
In February 2010, he was made a Distinguished Supporter of the
British Humanist AssociationThe British Humanist Association is an organisation of the United Kingdom which promotes Humanism and represents "people who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs." The BHA is committed to secularism, human rights, democracy, egalitarianism and mutual respect...
, stating: "it is essential to nail one’s colours to the mast as a
humanistHumanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
."
Poland controversy
On 6 October 2009, Fry was interviewed by
Jon SnowJon Snow is an English journalist and presenter, currently employed by ITN. He is best known for presenting Channel 4 News.He was Chancellor of Oxford Brookes University from 2001 to 2008.-Early life:...
on
Channel 4 NewsChannel 4 News is the news division of British television broadcaster Channel 4. It is produced by ITN, and has been in operation since the broadcaster's launch in 1982.-Channel 4 News:...
as a signatory of a letter to British
Conservative PartyThe Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
leader
David CameronDavid William Donald Cameron is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. Cameron represents Witney as its Member of Parliament ....
expressing concern about the party's relationship with Poland's opposition national conservative
Law and JusticeLaw and Justice , abbreviated to PiS, is a right-wing, conservative political party in Poland. With 147 seats in the Sejm and 38 in the Senate, it is the second-largest party in the Polish parliament....
party in the
European ParliamentThe European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
. During the interview, he stated:
The remark prompted a complaint from the Polish Embassy in London, an editorial in
The EconomistThe Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
and criticism from British Jewish historian
David CesaraniDavid Cesarani OBE is an English historian who specialises in Jewish history, especially the Holocaust. He has also written several biographies, notably Arthur Koestler: The Homeless Mind.-Early life:...
. Fry has since posted an apology in a six-page post on his personal blog, in which he stated:
Health
Fry has been diagnosed with
bipolar disorderBipolar disorder or bipolar affective disorder, historically known as manic–depressive disorder, is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a category of mood disorders defined by the presence of one or more episodes of abnormally elevated energy levels, cognition, and mood with or without one or...
, specifically stating he suffers from
CyclothymiaCyclothymia is a mood and mental disorder in the bipolar spectrum that causes both hypomanic and depressive episodes. It is defined medically within the bipolar spectrum and consists of recurrent disturbances between sudden hypomania and dysthymic episodes. The diagnosis of cyclothymic disorder is...
, referring to it as "bipolar lite". He suffered a nervous breakdown in 1995 while appearing in a
West EndWest End theatre is a popular term for mainstream professional theatre staged in the large theatres of London's 'Theatreland', the West End. Along with New York's Broadway theatre, West End theatre is usually considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English speaking...
play called
Cell MatesCell Mates is a play by Simon Gray. It opened at the Albery Theatre, London on 17 February 1995, starring Stephen Fry and Rik Mayall, with Gray himself directing. Despite having performed successfully for several weeks during the pre-London warm up dates in Guildford and Watford, Fry left the...
and subsequently walked out of the production, prompting its early closure and incurring the displeasure of co-star
Rik MayallRichard Michael "Rik" Mayall is an English comedian, writer, and actor. He is known for his comedy partnership with Ade Edmondson, his over-the-top, energetic portrayal of characters, and as a pioneer of alternative comedy in the early 1980s...
and playwright
Simon GraySimon James Holliday Gray, CBE , was an English playwright and memoirist who also had a career as a university lecturer in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years...
. Mayall's comedy partner,
Adrian EdmondsonAdrian Charles "Ade" Edmondson is an English comedian. He is probably best known for his comedic roles in the television series The Young Ones and Bottom , for which he also wrote together with his long-time collaboration partner Rik Mayall.-Early life:Edmondson, the second of four children, was...
, made light of the subject in his and Mayall's second
BottomBottom was a British sitcom television series that originally aired on BBC2 between 1991 and 1995. It was written by comic duo Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson who star as Richie and Eddie, two flatmates living on the dole in Hammersmith, London...
live show. After walking out of the production, Fry went missing for several days while contemplating
suicideSuicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
. He abandoned the idea and left the United Kingdom by ferry, eventually resurfacing in Belgium.
Fry has spoken publicly about his experience with bipolar disorder, which was also depicted in the documentary
Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic DepressiveStephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive is a 2006 two-part television documentary directed by Ross Wilson and featuring British actor and comedian Stephen Fry. It explores the effects of living with bipolar disorder, based on the experiences of Fry, other celebrities and members of the...
. In the programme, he interviewed other sufferers of the illness including
Carrie FisherCarrie Frances Fisher is an American actress, novelist, screenwriter, and lecturer. She is most famous for her portrayal of Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy, her bestselling novel Postcards from the Edge, for which she wrote the screenplay to the film of the same name, and her...
,
Richard DreyfussRichard Stephen Dreyfuss is an American actor best known for starring in a number of film, television, and theater roles since the late 1960s, including the films American Graffiti, Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, The Goodbye Girl, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, Stakeout, Always, What About...
and
Tony SlatteryAnthony Declan James "Tony" Slattery is an English actor and comedian who has appeared on British television regularly since the mid 1980s, most notably as a regular on the Channel 4 improvisation show Whose Line Is It Anyway? As a film actor, both comedic and serious, his credits include The...
. Also featured were chef
Rick SteinChristopher Richard "Rick" Stein OBE is an English chef, restaurateur and television presenter. He is currently the head chef and co-owner of "Rick Stein at Bannisters" at Mollymook, New South Wales, Australia, owns four restaurants in Padstow, a fish and chip shop in Falmouth, Cornwall and has...
, whose father committed suicide,
Robbie WilliamsRobert Peter "Robbie" Williams is an English singer-songwriter, vocal coach and occasional actor. He is a member of the pop group Take That. Williams rose to fame in the band's first run in the early- to mid-1990s. After many disagreements with the management and certain group members, Williams...
, who talks of his experience with major depression, and comedienne/former mental health nurse
Jo BrandJosephine Grace "Jo" Brand is a BAFTA winning British comedian, writer, and actor.- Early life :Jo Brand was born 23 July 1957 in Wandsworth, London. Her mother was a social worker. Brand is the middle of three children, with two brothers...
. He is also involved with the mental health charity
Stand to ReasonStand to Reason is a UK-based mental health charity which aims to raise the profile of people who are mentally ill, fight prejudice, establish rights and achieve equality.It is run by former corporate financier Jonathan Naess....
.
In 2009, Fry lent his support to a campaign led by the human rights organisation Reprieve to prevent the execution of
Akmal ShaikhAkmal Shaikh was a Pakistan-born British businessman who was convicted and executed in the People's Republic of China for drug trafficking. The trial and execution attracted media attention and strained diplomatic relations between the United Kingdom and China. Shaikh was born in Pakistan and...
, a British national who suffered from bipolar disorder, yet, despite calls for clemency, was executed in the People's Republic of China for drug trafficking.
In January 2008, he broke his arm while filming
Last Chance to SeeLast Chance to See is a wildlife documentary first broadcast on BBC Two in the United Kingdom during September and October 2009. The series is a follow-up of the radio series, also called Last Chance to See in which Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine set out to find endangered animals...
in
BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. He later explained in a podcast how the accident happened: while climbing aboard a boat, he slipped between it and the dock, and, while stopping himself from falling into the water, his body weight caused his right
humerusThe humerus is a long bone in the arm or forelimb that runs from the shoulder to the elbow....
to snap. The damage was more severe than first thought: the resulting vulnerability to his
radial nerveThe radial nerve is a nerve in the human body that supplies the upper limb. It supplies the medial and lateral heads of the triceps brachii muscle of the arm, as well as all 12 muscles in the posterior osteofascial compartment of the forearm and the associated joints and overlying skin.It...
—he was at risk of losing the use of his arm—was not diagnosed until he saw a consultant in the UK.
As the host of
QI, Fry has revealed that he is allergic to both champagne and bumble bee stings.
Appearing on
Top Gear in 2009, Fry had lost a significant amount of weight, prompting host
Jeremy ClarksonJeremy Charles Robert Clarkson is an English broadcaster, journalist and writer who specialises in motoring. He is best known for his role on the BBC TV show Top Gear along with co-presenters Richard Hammond and James May...
to ask jokingly, "Where's the rest of you?" Fry explained that he had shed a total of 6 st (84 lb; 38.1 kg), attributing the weight loss to doing a lot of walking while listening to downloaded Audiobooks.
Fry is 6 in 4 in (1.93 m) to 6 in 5 in (1.96 m), in height.
Business
In 2008, Fry formed SamFry Ltd, with long-term collaborator Andrew Sampson, to produce and fund new content, as well as manage his official website.
External links
- Five Minutes With: Stephen Fry, interview with Matthew Stadlen for the BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...