Stephen Fry

I've taken a while to get round to this panel game, and can hardly believe it has already embarked on its fifth series, yet it does seem curiously appropriate to our times. Whereas a format like Just a Minute relies on old-fashioned verbal fluency, the success of this show, developed by Graeme Garden, rests on the modern taste for factoids coupled with our newfound habit of subjecting everything we hear to a kind of plausibility pre-screening.

The likeable David Mitchell, who has managed in a very short time to step into Stephen Fry's commodious shoes, rules with a kind of brainy decency and surely has Radio 4 engraved on his heart. But the result is quirky rather than hilarious.

Up for discussion were beer, babies and spiders and among the diverting facts that emerged were that "most babies cry in the key of A", that Germany has a unique species of flea that is only found near beer-mats, and that Isaac Newton's only reported speech in the House of Commons as an MP was to ask someone to close the window.

Some of the alleged truths seemed a bit suspect to me, though. A spider is the only animal that sleeps on its back, for example. What about my cat, as I and a lot of other listeners protested? Then again, these truths are probably as reliable as anything else you'll hear this side of a general election.

With his hangdog expression and fruity Edinburgh burr Alastair Sim created numerous whimsical characters during a career on stage and screen that spanned more than 40 years - perhaps none more memorable than the creepily convincing Miss Fritton, headmistress in the St Trinian's films. This 1997 profile celebrates his achievements and speaks to his widow Naomi Plaskitt (Sim died in 1976), as well as hearing from friends, co-stars and admirers, including George Cole, Stephen Fry, Ian McKellen, Patricia Routledge and Nigel Hawthorne.

Fry: 'My love of Wagner is tearing me apart'

Stephen Fry is to discuss his complex feelings towards the composer on BBC4, writes Ian Burrell.

Stephen Fry gets operatic for BBC4 Wagner film

Channel unveils lineup for spring and summer, which includes series on satire and Christopher Eccleston in John Lennon film.

How very British, how very self-deprecating, to name a TV series QI, meaning "quite interesting". It's a "comedy panel quiz show" hosted by the ubiquitous Stephen Fry which, in Britain, started out modestly on one of the BBC's smaller channels and has since moved to BBC One.

It's not hard to see its appeal in that country, with the combination of Fry and comedian Alan Davies, plus a revolving selection of guests. The first episode on Prime on Sunday night was, well, quite interesting. The theme was Fight or Flight, with Fry asking questions to which the panellists were expected to deliver interesting answers, if not necessarily the right ones. Why were Spitfires painted pink? What's the opposite of a flying fish? When lions fight bears, which animal wins?

The guests' efforts to deliver answers were generally nonsense, and Johnny Vegas' accent was so thick it was hard to hear what he was saying - the audience thought he was hilarious - but the answers were quite interesting and poet Pam Ayres won. The scoring system was a complete mystery but any TV which increases general knowledge has got to be a treat these days.

Deep thinking with Stephen Fry

Big Think is a global forum connecting people and ideas. Their recent interview with British actor, comedian, writer and columnist, Stephen Fry, is brilliant.

Ah, QI. It's the televisual equivalent of punting down the Thames in a top hat and tails, isn't it? It's an afternoon spent leisurely playing croquet with Mater and Pater, drinking cups of Earl Grey and reading PG Wodehouse. It's everything this proud nation stands for isn't it? Well, yes it is. This is the nation of intellectual snobbery, extreme pedantry and Gyles Brandreth after all.

Stephen Fry is a funny, charming man. All you must do to retain that image of him is remember he's a (quite) good author, he was in A Bit of Fry & Laurie, Blackadder and the less twee of his recent documentaries (obviously block out Kingdom, his crashingly dull Twitterisms and his shameless, omnipresent advert ho-ing).

The format, a simple panel game, works well enough and, along with some often genuinely interesting topics, it gives enough opportunities for some for the better guests to put their amusing spin on it and make for agreeable, if slightly passive, watching.

So why do we hate it? [Deep breath] Well... It's Jonathan Creek and his 'Cutesy Little Brother' act or whatever it is he's trying to do by consistently failing to grasp the basic idea of the show for 'comedic' effect, much to the hilarity of the fawning, hyperactive studio audience. It's a Quite Interesting fact that 98% of Davies's laughs are achieved by acting out a simplified version of another panelist's joke again and again and again, all the while looking like Anita Roddick in a particularly loud and ill-fitting blouse. Sitting there grinning, acting like a black hole swallowing up all the jokes and trivia, a comedy anti-catalyst extraordinaire, the anti-Midas of the one-liner. He is consistently, no always the least funny, the most annoying participant and yet, he's always there. He's the one constant. He's ALWAYS there. He's enough to make you wish your left eye was blind.

tvBite wouldn't point any of this out to him of course. We value our ears far too much to do that.

Fry & Laurie tagged all-time favourite British comedy

Readers of the USA-based Tellyspotting blog have voted Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry as the favorite British comedy couple of all-time.

Some episodes of QI are quite funny, others are quite interesting. The best episodes combine the two to become extremely entertaining, but I think "Gravity" will have to settle for quite interesting. Actually, make that very interesting. This was one of those episodes where the sheer wealth of astonishing trivia overshadowed the jokes because the guests were hanging on Stephen Fry's every word. Ordinarily, I'd grumble about them being paid to sit there as glorified members of the studio audience, but I actually don't blame them because I was similarly fascinated...

Regardless, it was a shame Rich Hall didn't make much of an impression here, as he's ordinarily good value as the laconic interjector, but my low expectations for QI newbie Barry Humphries were proven well founded. He's only ever funny in the guise of his alter-ego Dame Edna Everage (and even the hilarity of Edna's debatable), and his lacklustre performance here proved so. Humphries' garish clothes were the only thing memorable about him. So yes, we'll have to put this episode down as a something you'll find yourself enjoying mainly for non-comedic reasons. I'm still fascinated by the fact it takes 42-minutes to fall through the Earth's surface to any point on the planet (be it London to Australia, or London to Paris), and that the bullet from a gun fired while aimed parallel to the ground at arm's length will hit the ground at the same time you simply drop a bullet held at the same height.

The frustrating thing about QI is that it's increasingly difficult to impress people down the pub with the littleknown facts it throws up, as it's become so popular (and it repeated so often) that your source is always never in doubt.

This esoteric quiz continues to leave us feeling we've learned something new. Tonight Stephen Fry and Alan Davies welcome guest panellist Barry Humphries. Let us hope that Humphries will display the same acerbic wit as his alter ego, Dame Edna.