By this point in time, nearly everyone knows Hugh Laurie from his misanthropic, limping character, Dr. Gregory House. People may or may not know Stephen Fry, who is more or less an icon in Britain but in America is often relegated to voiceovers and cameos as an Extremely English Person – you would probably recognize him on sight as “that British Guy.”
What you probably don’t know is that during the 1990’s both of them managed to produce one of the smartest and most bizarre sketch comedy series since Monty Python, that show being A Bit of Fry and Laurie. It may even come as a surprise at this point in the game that Hugh Laurie is British, though I hope not, and furthermore had an extremely successful comedy career back home across the pond. If you know Blackadder, you probably recognize the both of them from Hugh Laurie’s portrayals of various fumbling twits throughout the ages, and Fry’s domineering, bellowing figures of authority.
A Bit of Fry and Laurie does a complete 180 on much of what you know and expect from them. (If anything.) I hadn’t heard of it before reading about it on Wikipedia and then numerous sketches found on YouTube. What I’ve found, however, has been nothing short of a delight, and with the strike effectively going cold turkey on all of our television needs I thought it'd be worth introducing this show to anyone who hasn't heard of it.
Just as a taster, here’s a favorite in which Stephen Fry demonstrates his “Dancersizing” technique, in which you get the rare but valuable sight of seeing a six-and-a-half foot tall homosexual Jewish Brit twist around like he has a serious medical problem: http://youtube.com/watch?v=aZUU31kHrnw
Written and performed by the pair, the show is extremely unorthodox, following a consistently changing format of sketches, direct addresses to the crowd from the two actors, and manic “Vox Pops,” in which the pair appear for a handful of seconds around London dressed as a variety of characters to deliver one or two perplexing and often self-contradictory statements before moving on. Nothing beats seeing Hugh Laurie in drag saying, “There was a pneumatic drill outside our house all night last night. …fortunately, it wasn’t turned on,” before suddenly changing to the next sequence.
The most consistent theme of the show is florid, quick-moving wordplay of the strangest kind. Often it features Stephen Fry delivering an eccentric, illogical, and usually sexual speech with a very academic demeanor. Below is one of their best sketches about the marvelous nature of language, in which Fry manages to say quite a lot without actually saying anything at all:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZFD01r6ersw
Another fun aspect of the show is that it showcases Laurie’s considerable but often underused musical talent – many episodes end with Hugh playing the piano as Fry bids everyone goodnight. Towards seasons three and four, the show habitually ends with Fry making an extremely odd cocktail (examples include “A Long Slow Snog With a Distant Relative”), then turning to Laurie and saying, “Please, Mr. Music, will you play?” and then dancing around shaking the cocktail while Laurie plays a jaunty jazz piece, providing his own accompaniment as a trumpet (by making trumpet noises with his mouth). Fry uses his size to great effect during this, usually putting the shaker down his pants or between his legs and flying across the stage, thrusting his hips in a very suggestive manner. In season four, Fry, Laurie, and their guests lift their glasses at the end of the show and all say together, "Soupy twist," a nonsense term that probably doesn't mean anything at all. Example here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Gf73iJ31Heg&feature=related
Here’s one of their fun duos mocking America, called “Kicking Ass”: http://youtube.com/watch?v=6riY-103vbc
Neither of them have any problem breaking the fourth wall – sketches often end with them addressing the audience or each other about how, say, the audience can phone in with a suitable punchline for this sketch, or even walking into the audience and bellowing into their faces. Here the pair of them berate their audience for laughing at things which are distinctly not funny at all: http://youtube.com/watch?v=vKjJh1NJXf0
I’ve managed to get all four seasons of the show, and I have to admit that all of them are stellar except for the third season, in which I suspect Fry’s personal problems and studio intervention were hampering things. The fourth season may be their best, as they revert to a somewhat-stable format in which they introduce a pair of minor comedy stars to be used in the sketch, and then interview them in the least effective way possible. Usually their introductions are misleading and make no sense, such as saying one star is an “amateur professional” or, well… You’ll see why this is so hard to describe here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=237GLvFUxi0
If you happen to be in England you may have already heard of this show, but to most Americans I suspect it’s a complete surprise. It seems like most people over here have never heard of Blackadder, let alone this show, which, admittedly, may be less accessible for some. The show is often cerebral, dense, and challengingly strange – for example, in the first episode one “sketch” is just a close-up, black-and-white shot of Hugh Laurie’s armpit as he applies spray-on deodorant without end and rhapsodizes about the qualities of said deodorant in a nasal, American twang. In another sketch Stephen Fry reads a note he found “while going through my Uncle’s hair-dryers” which is a letter from the chief of a housing board that is either bureaucratically boring or explicitly homosexual. To call it “experimental” would probably do injustice to experiments everywhere. Then again, hearing Stephen Fry discuss anything sexual in his avuncular, beaming tone is always funny. I still don’t know why America doesn’t use the word “trousers” more often, it’s hilarious.
Anyways, I enjoy the hell out of this show, and maybe you will too if you haven’t already. Maybe you’ll see a side to actors you know well that you never expected – I suspected seeing Dr. House bounce around like a cartoon character may be a new one on a lot of people, as Hugh Laurie proves himself to be a physical comedian on the level of Stan Laurel or Charlie Chaplin. If this is your first introduction to Stephen Fry, well, you’re missing out on a great gem – he radiates benevolent intelligence and, more to the point, knows it, and uses this quality well when, say, discussing how lovely and beautiful he is or how to operate a cigarette case.
It’s likely this already has a cult following in Britain, so I may be preaching to the choir in that regard. But this is something so much fun it’d be a shame for more people to miss it.
What you probably don’t know is that during the 1990’s both of them managed to produce one of the smartest and most bizarre sketch comedy series since Monty Python, that show being A Bit of Fry and Laurie. It may even come as a surprise at this point in the game that Hugh Laurie is British, though I hope not, and furthermore had an extremely successful comedy career back home across the pond. If you know Blackadder, you probably recognize the both of them from Hugh Laurie’s portrayals of various fumbling twits throughout the ages, and Fry’s domineering, bellowing figures of authority.
A Bit of Fry and Laurie does a complete 180 on much of what you know and expect from them. (If anything.) I hadn’t heard of it before reading about it on Wikipedia and then numerous sketches found on YouTube. What I’ve found, however, has been nothing short of a delight, and with the strike effectively going cold turkey on all of our television needs I thought it'd be worth introducing this show to anyone who hasn't heard of it.
Just as a taster, here’s a favorite in which Stephen Fry demonstrates his “Dancersizing” technique, in which you get the rare but valuable sight of seeing a six-and-a-half foot tall homosexual Jewish Brit twist around like he has a serious medical problem: http://youtube.com/watch?v=aZUU31kHrnw
Written and performed by the pair, the show is extremely unorthodox, following a consistently changing format of sketches, direct addresses to the crowd from the two actors, and manic “Vox Pops,” in which the pair appear for a handful of seconds around London dressed as a variety of characters to deliver one or two perplexing and often self-contradictory statements before moving on. Nothing beats seeing Hugh Laurie in drag saying, “There was a pneumatic drill outside our house all night last night. …fortunately, it wasn’t turned on,” before suddenly changing to the next sequence.
The most consistent theme of the show is florid, quick-moving wordplay of the strangest kind. Often it features Stephen Fry delivering an eccentric, illogical, and usually sexual speech with a very academic demeanor. Below is one of their best sketches about the marvelous nature of language, in which Fry manages to say quite a lot without actually saying anything at all:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZFD01r6ersw
Another fun aspect of the show is that it showcases Laurie’s considerable but often underused musical talent – many episodes end with Hugh playing the piano as Fry bids everyone goodnight. Towards seasons three and four, the show habitually ends with Fry making an extremely odd cocktail (examples include “A Long Slow Snog With a Distant Relative”), then turning to Laurie and saying, “Please, Mr. Music, will you play?” and then dancing around shaking the cocktail while Laurie plays a jaunty jazz piece, providing his own accompaniment as a trumpet (by making trumpet noises with his mouth). Fry uses his size to great effect during this, usually putting the shaker down his pants or between his legs and flying across the stage, thrusting his hips in a very suggestive manner. In season four, Fry, Laurie, and their guests lift their glasses at the end of the show and all say together, "Soupy twist," a nonsense term that probably doesn't mean anything at all. Example here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Gf73iJ31Heg&feature=related
Here’s one of their fun duos mocking America, called “Kicking Ass”: http://youtube.com/watch?v=6riY-103vbc
Neither of them have any problem breaking the fourth wall – sketches often end with them addressing the audience or each other about how, say, the audience can phone in with a suitable punchline for this sketch, or even walking into the audience and bellowing into their faces. Here the pair of them berate their audience for laughing at things which are distinctly not funny at all: http://youtube.com/watch?v=vKjJh1NJXf0
I’ve managed to get all four seasons of the show, and I have to admit that all of them are stellar except for the third season, in which I suspect Fry’s personal problems and studio intervention were hampering things. The fourth season may be their best, as they revert to a somewhat-stable format in which they introduce a pair of minor comedy stars to be used in the sketch, and then interview them in the least effective way possible. Usually their introductions are misleading and make no sense, such as saying one star is an “amateur professional” or, well… You’ll see why this is so hard to describe here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=237GLvFUxi0
If you happen to be in England you may have already heard of this show, but to most Americans I suspect it’s a complete surprise. It seems like most people over here have never heard of Blackadder, let alone this show, which, admittedly, may be less accessible for some. The show is often cerebral, dense, and challengingly strange – for example, in the first episode one “sketch” is just a close-up, black-and-white shot of Hugh Laurie’s armpit as he applies spray-on deodorant without end and rhapsodizes about the qualities of said deodorant in a nasal, American twang. In another sketch Stephen Fry reads a note he found “while going through my Uncle’s hair-dryers” which is a letter from the chief of a housing board that is either bureaucratically boring or explicitly homosexual. To call it “experimental” would probably do injustice to experiments everywhere. Then again, hearing Stephen Fry discuss anything sexual in his avuncular, beaming tone is always funny. I still don’t know why America doesn’t use the word “trousers” more often, it’s hilarious.
Anyways, I enjoy the hell out of this show, and maybe you will too if you haven’t already. Maybe you’ll see a side to actors you know well that you never expected – I suspected seeing Dr. House bounce around like a cartoon character may be a new one on a lot of people, as Hugh Laurie proves himself to be a physical comedian on the level of Stan Laurel or Charlie Chaplin. If this is your first introduction to Stephen Fry, well, you’re missing out on a great gem – he radiates benevolent intelligence and, more to the point, knows it, and uses this quality well when, say, discussing how lovely and beautiful he is or how to operate a cigarette case.
It’s likely this already has a cult following in Britain, so I may be preaching to the choir in that regard. But this is something so much fun it’d be a shame for more people to miss it.
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