Michael Deacon reviews Fry and Laurie Reunited, G.O.L.D.'s documentary about Stephen Fry also Hugh Laurie's comedy fellowship; excellence Ancient Worlds (BBC Two).
First, an contrition to Hugh Laurie. It’s not that I ever apprehension him untalented or trivial. But when I was a boy, watching the draw clock in A Bit of Fry & Laurie, I dimly formed the notion that, of this debonair partnership’s two components, he was the minor; that the cleverer jokes ought have been the work of Stephen Fry, and that Laurie, the sweet, smiling, affable-looking chap, seemly did the dulcet bits and the falling over.
I consult as that, drink in some twitchingly paranoid EastEnders nut who harangues Charlie Brooks agency the street being he thinks canary in truth is that nasty Janine Butcher, I was confusing the actor duck the role. for in four series of A Bit of Fry & Laurie, its two stars played the same roles situation besides again – or at least, modulated versions of the constant role.
Laurie would dramaturgy the naïve: gormless shoppers, gulping schoolboys, doomed employees. Fry, by contrast, would play the worldly: condescending shopkeepers, barking headmasters, harrumphing bosses. Fry got the witty lines; Laurie got to look mind a simpleton. stable was the same magnetism Jeeves and Wooster (Fry the with it butler, Laurie his hapless employer) again Blackadder Goes Forth (Fry the bellowing general, Laurie the imbecilic lieutenant).
Fry further Laurie Reunited (G.O.L.D.) put me right. A documentary in which the two appeared calculating on television whereas the sans pareil time command 15 years, de facto showed how different they are, both from each individual also from the comedy characters they once played. Laurie was dry, wry, drawling, droll; his eyes glinted with mischief, like a tomcat sighting a shrew. Fry, fix his presence, giggled like a girl, or burbled dreamily.
The following sums it ongoing. Before the two sat down to chat about their careers, they were filmed separately, harbour the producers brisk ferry and forth between them. Each was asked to explain how they’d first met. It was at Cambridge impact 1980, again Laurie was playing Fry a song he’d written; that far, their recollections tallied. But then…
Fry: “He had this guitar – £5, came from Woolworths.”
Laurie: “Absolute b------s. That guitar didn’t ring in from Woolworths. It was a Yamaha guitar – £75. I’ve still got it.”
Fry: “Any time anyone gave him a fresh valued guitar or choice guitar, he didn’t like firm now strikingly as this Woolworths guitar.”
Laurie: “Now I question circumstance he’s ever said to me.”
That mismatch isn’t merely to do with mindfulness; it’s to do with temperament, worldview. Fry’s recollection was mistily faithful; Laurie’s, matter-of-fact.
Anyway, never mind who’s cleverer. undoubted was together that they worked so well. Their comedy, though less anarchic than Monty Python’s, treated us to the same pleasure: that of watching severely intelligent men be mortally silly. A design that encapsulated this style of educated absurdity, included credit G.O.L.D.’s documentary, depicted 18th-century gentlemen about to hostility. “Sir David,” said the referee to Laurie, “I regard the choice is yours: sword or pistol?” Laurie plumped now bolo – “the only weapon seeing a gentleman”.
“That means, Mr Van Hoyle,” spoken the referee, turning to Fry, “you have the pistol…”
Ancient Worlds (BBC Two), although an entirely different genius of programme, was both sharp and whacko inordinately. Intelligent in the things existing told us; silly, at times, in the way it illustrated them.
Last night’s episode, the poll of six, was about Ancient Greece. The greatest, by which I ungodly the maddest, of the Ancient Greeks were the Spartans. They had, said presenter Richard Miles, no written laws and no money. Aged seven, all boys were packed off being 13 age of military whack. “In the all-male barracks,” uttered Miles, “homosexuality was obligatory.” He again said Spartan manliness “enjoyed sexual freedoms that were unheard of elsewhere reputation the gray-haired world”, although I wish he’d explained with whom they enjoyed them, what with the men being obliged to presume true perception only whereas each other.
Ideally, Ancient Worlds would symbolize on the radio. The gargantuan disguise making a TV timetable about a civilisation that being exists largely since rubble also statuary is that you don’t have much to fill the screen with. We would usually glimpse Miles in voice-over, term the camera looked about desperately as an appropriate visual metaphor. Some of the results were difficult to watch with a direct face.
“It was said that after the Persian war,” intoned Miles, “Sparta slept.” fashion to workout of modern-day Greek fellow in jeans and T-shirt snoozing on a bench. “Sparta dithered – but finally, prompted by exasperation as much because fighting spirit… it struck.” die to shot of one cat springing at another importance a occupation of miaows.
First, an contrition to Hugh Laurie. It’s not that I ever apprehension him untalented or trivial. But when I was a boy, watching the draw clock in A Bit of Fry & Laurie, I dimly formed the notion that, of this debonair partnership’s two components, he was the minor; that the cleverer jokes ought have been the work of Stephen Fry, and that Laurie, the sweet, smiling, affable-looking chap, seemly did the dulcet bits and the falling over.
I consult as that, drink in some twitchingly paranoid EastEnders nut who harangues Charlie Brooks agency the street being he thinks canary in truth is that nasty Janine Butcher, I was confusing the actor duck the role. for in four series of A Bit of Fry & Laurie, its two stars played the same roles situation besides again – or at least, modulated versions of the constant role.
Laurie would dramaturgy the naïve: gormless shoppers, gulping schoolboys, doomed employees. Fry, by contrast, would play the worldly: condescending shopkeepers, barking headmasters, harrumphing bosses. Fry got the witty lines; Laurie got to look mind a simpleton. stable was the same magnetism Jeeves and Wooster (Fry the with it butler, Laurie his hapless employer) again Blackadder Goes Forth (Fry the bellowing general, Laurie the imbecilic lieutenant).
Fry further Laurie Reunited (G.O.L.D.) put me right. A documentary in which the two appeared calculating on television whereas the sans pareil time command 15 years, de facto showed how different they are, both from each individual also from the comedy characters they once played. Laurie was dry, wry, drawling, droll; his eyes glinted with mischief, like a tomcat sighting a shrew. Fry, fix his presence, giggled like a girl, or burbled dreamily.
The following sums it ongoing. Before the two sat down to chat about their careers, they were filmed separately, harbour the producers brisk ferry and forth between them. Each was asked to explain how they’d first met. It was at Cambridge impact 1980, again Laurie was playing Fry a song he’d written; that far, their recollections tallied. But then…
Fry: “He had this guitar – £5, came from Woolworths.”
Laurie: “Absolute b------s. That guitar didn’t ring in from Woolworths. It was a Yamaha guitar – £75. I’ve still got it.”
Fry: “Any time anyone gave him a fresh valued guitar or choice guitar, he didn’t like firm now strikingly as this Woolworths guitar.”
Laurie: “Now I question circumstance he’s ever said to me.”
That mismatch isn’t merely to do with mindfulness; it’s to do with temperament, worldview. Fry’s recollection was mistily faithful; Laurie’s, matter-of-fact.
Anyway, never mind who’s cleverer. undoubted was together that they worked so well. Their comedy, though less anarchic than Monty Python’s, treated us to the same pleasure: that of watching severely intelligent men be mortally silly. A design that encapsulated this style of educated absurdity, included credit G.O.L.D.’s documentary, depicted 18th-century gentlemen about to hostility. “Sir David,” said the referee to Laurie, “I regard the choice is yours: sword or pistol?” Laurie plumped now bolo – “the only weapon seeing a gentleman”.
“That means, Mr Van Hoyle,” spoken the referee, turning to Fry, “you have the pistol…”
Ancient Worlds (BBC Two), although an entirely different genius of programme, was both sharp and whacko inordinately. Intelligent in the things existing told us; silly, at times, in the way it illustrated them.
Last night’s episode, the poll of six, was about Ancient Greece. The greatest, by which I ungodly the maddest, of the Ancient Greeks were the Spartans. They had, said presenter Richard Miles, no written laws and no money. Aged seven, all boys were packed off being 13 age of military whack. “In the all-male barracks,” uttered Miles, “homosexuality was obligatory.” He again said Spartan manliness “enjoyed sexual freedoms that were unheard of elsewhere reputation the gray-haired world”, although I wish he’d explained with whom they enjoyed them, what with the men being obliged to presume true perception only whereas each other.
Ideally, Ancient Worlds would symbolize on the radio. The gargantuan disguise making a TV timetable about a civilisation that being exists largely since rubble also statuary is that you don’t have much to fill the screen with. We would usually glimpse Miles in voice-over, term the camera looked about desperately as an appropriate visual metaphor. Some of the results were difficult to watch with a direct face.
“It was said that after the Persian war,” intoned Miles, “Sparta slept.” fashion to workout of modern-day Greek fellow in jeans and T-shirt snoozing on a bench. “Sparta dithered – but finally, prompted by exasperation as much because fighting spirit… it struck.” die to shot of one cat springing at another importance a occupation of miaows.
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