The beauty of ideas and the idea of beauty (Fry & Laurie)

Member Name: lordsnooty

Product:	Fry & Laurie
Date:	01/10/02 (514 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Funny + clever, It's Fry & Laurie!

Disadvantages: Produced on a budget, No DVDs available!

Criminally, Fry & Laurie (as a comedy duo, at least) are currently languishing in the world of repeats on Paramount Comedy. Criminally, because A Bit of Fry & Laurie is one of the best sketch shows of the last thirty years.

Stephen Fry excels in portraying eloquent eccentrics, and Laurie in playing dimwits and straight men. In that respect, Laurie could be said to have received the rough end of the stick, but both men compliment each other perfectly.

Some of the most memorable sketches include 'The Red Hat of Patferrick' - a brilliant spoof of The Twilight Zone, 'Michael Jackson' - in which Stephen Fry (dressed in tweed) is introduced as the king of pop, and 'It's a Wonderful Life' - a film spoof in which media baron Laurie is shown what the world would be like if he had never been born. Each episode also had lots of Vox Pops, in which members of the public (Fry or Laurie dressed up, often in drag) gave their opinions on a 'varied' range of subjects.

There were four series of ABF&L made between 1988 and 1995. They varied in tone and content, and the last series was unquestionably the darkest. While the final series was still airing, Stephen Fry went a bit strange and ran away to Belgium, abandoning the theatre production he was starring in at the time. This might explain the blackness of the final series to a certain extent.

These days, Fry is best known as a novelist and advert voice over man, whilst Fry has starred in films such as 'Maybe Baby' and... well, voiced adverts too. He's doing nappy ads at the moment. Fry, Laurie & Tom Baker seem to have the commercial voice over market pretty much tied up.

Not much merchandise is available for fans, sadly. The script books are available for all four series. They're particularly good, and many of the skits are better as written than they were performed, due to extra material that wasn't used in the programmes. A compila
tion video (from series two, I believe) is available, but you'd be hard pressed to track it down. You'll have better luck if you look overseas - I got mine from the Barnes & Noble website in America (they ship to England).

Fans of the duo shouldn't give up hope of a fifth series - Fry has said in interviews that he and Laurie have been mulling over the idea for a long time, so fingers crossed.

Mr Dalliard, I'm drivelling again!

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