I earnestly hope that my rush to get to him “just in case” is premature. He says that the early intervention for his prostate cancer has saved his life, and well may we hope that’s true. It—and his bipolar disorder—seem unconnected to his leaving as host of QI as well. He just felt it was time to leave. After thirteen seasons, I suppose that’s reasonable, even though they’re British seasons of like six episodes each. I think he’s done almost as many episodes of Bones as he has of Blackadder.
Still, he turns up in the most interesting places. My kids watch a Spanish animated show called Pocoyo, and Fry is the English-language narrator. Sixty episodes of it. He’s the Master of Laketown in the Hobbit movies, and my goodness I hope he got to keep that portrait of himself. He is frankly the perfect choice for the voice of the Guide in the movie of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. And would you believe that his first film appearance is in Chariots of Fire, as an uncredited singer performing in HMS Pinafore?
He’s won astonishingly few awards himself, and most of those were ensemble awards for Gosford Park. On the other hand, Emma Thompson pretty well credits him with saving her Oscar-winning screenplay for Sense and Sensibility. They were in the Cambridge Footlights together, long years ago, and remain friends. He’s a computer person, and when Thompson’s computer ate her screenplay, she actually hauled it to him in a taxi and begged him to save her. Which he did. It took him several hours, it seems, leading a QI panel to suggest that perhaps what he’d done was simply write a screenplay that Thompson claimed as her own.
I first saw him, I think, on Whose Line Is It Anyway? Where I learned that Fry’s gift is not particularly for improv. I remember hating it when episodes he was on—which includes the entire first season—came on, because he simply wasn’t very good at it. Indeed, I hated him so much that I didn’t even recognize him when I saw Blackadder, because he was actually funny on that. I think it was when we acquired the first couple of seasons on DVD that I came to recognize him and realized that he is funny, but it takes him some scripting or the right circumstances. Improv just isn’t his bag.
Hosting QI was the right circumstance. I adore him on it. It does require a certain amount of improvisation, because you’re acting opposite people. (He insists that they don’t give out the questions in advance and has said that one regular panel member asks for them anyway.) I’ve seen segments where the panel made him laugh until he couldn’t breathe. You can’t fake that; I know, because I’ve regularly been made to laugh until I can’t breathe. Wit and bon mots and so forth are a different skill set than improv, and it’s clear which Fry handles better.
He’s a fine actor, too; I caught Wilde because it starts with “W,” and he’s definitely better in that than I remember. Kingdom is a decent show, and of course he’s Jeeves. There’s a Twelfth Night where he’s Malvolio, and I need to track that down. Especially because it’s all-male and Mark Rylance is Olivia! His performance as Typical Pompous And Incompetent Englishman in Gosford Park isn’t talked about enough, and honestly it’s one of the only Altman movies I like. Not just because of Fry, but he doesn’t hurt.
That Twelfth Night is not available from the library or for rental anywhere; help me buy it by supporting my Patreon!