Stephen Fry

Fry and Laurie Reunited, G.O.L.D., review

Michael Deacon reviews Fry and Laurie Reunited, G.O.L.D.'s documentary about Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie's comedy partnership.

Rather than a simple clip show, this is a specially-convened summit between Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, together on screen for the first time in 15 years. It's hard to make much out over the gales of self-deprecation but, over 90 minutes, the friends discuss their working relationship and history together, vamping on some old themes for the benefit of the camera. Fry is never far from our screens, so the real revelation is Laurie, whose less widely exposed wryness is hilarious. At Cambridge the pair met in Fry's room. "A2," says Laurie, "also the Folkestone road . . ."

In the back of a cab on his way to meeting his best friend Hugh Laurie, Stephen Fry muses: "When you know someone really, really well you never actually talk about things." Both Fry and Laurie put that right in a hugely enjoyable, clip-strewn chat, their first television appearance together in 15 years. It's a loose, freewheeling, vastly funny get-together with Laurie, confident and no longer the self-effacing adjunct to Fry (that's what being the biggest TV star in the world does for you), leading things brilliantly. "I think I made a girl laugh in a bar," says Laurie of his Cambridge comedy years. "So many stories start that way " Fry giggles helplessly as the pair reminisce in what Laurie describes as "a beautifully prepared conversation pit" in lovely Eltham Palace, south-east London. They look back at old A Bit of Fry and Laurie sketches, talk of their love for one another, and Laurie offers a word of caution to the unwary about his techno-fan friend: "If Stephen asks you to look at something on his computer screen, run for your f*****g life."

Since Fry and Laurie last shared the screen 15 years ago, Stephen Fry is now such a national treasure he's now owned by the National Trust, and Hugh Laurie is now the highest-paid actor on US TV. Not bad for a pair of Cambridge graduates, eh? In this special, when they're not giggling, they talk about their friendship, double-act, and ask each other all sorts of impertinent questions.

We always loved A Bit Of Fry And Laurie. Even after we bought the DVDs and realised that some of the sketches were dated. Even after Stephen Fry did Kingdom. Even after House got really, really creaky. We still loved Fry and Laurie.

So to see them re-united in Eltham Palace for a chinwag about old times sent an excited shiver even through our cynical frame. And it is lovely to see their genuine affection. It really is. They recollect amusingly and Stephen Fry even has the grace to look genuinely horribly embarrassed at times, in a manner he wouldn't if being interviewed.

But there aren't enough sketches and the talking heads (Whitehouse and Higson apart) are irritating or irrelevant. Why Gold thought the first person we'd like to see talking about them is Jools Bleeding Holland is anyone's guess. The most interesting bits are when they're apart, discussing each other's further careers. Laurie, in particular, is good talking about Fry. "I wish he'd say 'no' more." Don't we all, Hugh. Don't we all.

Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie reunited

Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie are being reunited on television for the first time in 15 years.

Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie in pictures

A photo gallery of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie.

Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie look back over a partnership that was formed 30 years ago and then flourished with Jeeves and Wooster, Blackadder and A Bit of Fry and Laurie. They haven't worked together for 15 years and so this celebration of the pair's achievements as the comic double act allows them to reminisce about their careers, their friendship and reasons for their success. With some this might be tedious and luvvy; not so with Fry and Laurie, who inject warmth and humour into this documentary about two people who genuinely appear to thrive in each other's company.

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