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I miss Stephen Fry. I also miss Hugh Laurie being in something other than House.
Been watching A Bit of Fry and Laurie and Jeeves and Wooster. Pretty dry, but hilarious. As an American whose first exposure to Hugh Laurie was House, it’s wonderful to see him being so silly. Also, Dr. House’s accent is amazing.
Hugh does do an American accent even better than Bob Hoskins.
If you like them in Jeeves and Wooster check out “Black Adder the Third” and “Black Adder Goes Forth” Not so much Fry or Laurie in the first and second seasons, but still quite funny.
Row, row,
row your boat, gently down the stream,
trousers down,
bottoms out,
life is such a scream.
I love House.
On the commentary on one of the season DVDs (I’d guess season 1) they said that when Laurie came in they almost wrote him off right away because they wanted Dr. House to be very American. Then he busted out the accent and they were sold.
Are those the Top Gear guys? What program is this? Cause if it regularly has the hosts of Top Gear AND Stephen Fry I think I’ll need to find it.
QI (“Quite Interesting”)
The one guy is Jeremy Clarkson, one of the presenters of Top Gear, the other one throwing questions at Stephen is Alan Davies. I also know the other guys, but their names esape me at the moment.
Gawd, I love this show so much, have been an avid follower since it started. Stephen Fry FTW!
It looks very interesting. I’ve already looked up the back seasons on Amazon’s UK site.
Don’t expect more religious discussion though. There are another 3-4 of these over five seasons. Mostly it’s just a quirky discussion of trivia & jokes. I think it’s good fun and worth watching but this clip isn’t representative.
It’s a panel game called QI, which I had always assumed was a more grammatical form of the acronym “IQ”, based on the shows premise of asking seeming obvious questions and penalising those who make popular but wrong answers.
The only regular is Alan Davies (who is lampooned for being, well, a bit thick) and of course Stephen Fry (who is the opposite, in a slightly public schoolboy kind of way). He’s also openly gay, in case you missed the “can’t tell me who to go to bed with” line.
The other panelists vary from week to week; I don’t actually know the names of the others (except Clarkson), but they tend to be comedians and celebrities; Jo Brand and Rob Brydon tend to be fairly regular, as does Rich Hall. I seem to recall David Mitchell made an appearance once or twice.
Jeremy Clarkson makes a career out of being a dick on TV. The only reason I appreciate seeing him on shows like QI and Have I Got News For You is because there’s a strong likelihood that someone with a bit more brains and personality will rip the piss out of him.
I think Alan Davies deserves a little better than being called “thick”. The thing is that he is, as far as I know, the only person on the panel that never takes a sneak preview on the upcoming questions (unlike the others, which does, however, not mean that all you see is staged. The truth is far from that). Therefore his answers may sometimes seem a bit more awkward or clumsy, but he certainly is able to pull a few funny lines out of thin air. Wouldn’t wanna call that “thick” ;)
QI = Quite Interesting.
Also, I would dispute than Alan Davies is ‘thick’. He bumbles a bit and often says the obvious answer (that is invariably wrong), but thatt’s part of his allure, IMO.
I saw that when it first aired and I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face. It’s not just that they’re dissing religion but that everyone including the audience (who are a broad selection of the population, just out to watch a quiz show) seem uniformly gobsmacked and upset.
That’s what I think the future of the atheist movement should look like: a world where religion is still present (not gonna wipe it out so why bother) but where people react to it with confusion and then get applauded for doing so. Believe what you want but don’t expect to be treated with reverence or respect if that belief is loony.
You cannot wipe out religion, if you remove christian god then they will rever to something else holistic. Most people are afraid to take charge of their own life and be responsible for their on actions, so they always will need some imaginary person to blame it on. Hey I didn’t do it, god made me do it! .
Point of order, Daniel: The ranter is Alan Davies, not Stephen Fry.
I shall correct myself – the ranted started off as Alan Davies, but Stephen Fry took it over!
The problem with the manna from heaven story is that is used as a claim for who owns what piece of land in the middle east.
Also interesting, someone on UK television said the koran was a myth and there no roits in the streets of London or an apology from Gordon Brown.
Devysciple: The other two are the wonderful Jeremy Hardy, who is a staple of BBC Radio 4 comedy, and (I think – it’s hard to tell from the wide shot) veteran writer/comedian Barry Cryer.
Stephen Fry did an interesting talk with Christopher Hitchens on blasphemy that’s available on the net, although it should be mentioned that Hitch sounds a little inebriated and tended to hog the mic to begin with. I also remember seeing Stephen say “Religion – Shit it!” on QI, but I can’t find the clip on YouTube.
i wish jeremy clarkson had said more