Sherry Chandler » Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry
Thanks to Robert Peake for giving us a sample of Stephen Fry’s work on language:
Stephen Fry is, of course, the author of The Ode Less Travelled By: Unlocking the Poet Within . He was, most notably in our household, Jeeves to Hugh Laurie’s Wooster. And just this weekend, coincidentally, our Netflix Adventure was the 1997 Wilde, starring Frye as Oscar himself and Jude Law as his young lover Alfred Douglas. It’s an interesting and daring movie, well worth watching.
(Watch for a young Orlando Bloom, playing a rentboy.)
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7 Comments
1. Levari replies at 14th May 2007, 5:34 pm :
Thank you…
There’s a link for you.
Best,
L
2. Tommy replies at 15th May 2007, 9:21 am :
I guess Britain preserved the tradition of comic partners longer than we did.
It’s interesting to note that Hugh Laurie is, more often than not, the straight man. Sure, he gets a few funny lines, but mostly he’s there for other people to be silly or biting or downright mean at.
I haven’t seen House yet. I think I should start watching.
3. LANGUAGE IS THE BREATH OF&hellip replies at 15th May 2007, 11:16 am :
[...] Via Sherry Chandler [...]
4. sherry replies at 16th May 2007, 11:09 am :
Thank you, Levari. Folks, here’s a link to Levari’s blog, The Night Book. He posts some fine poetry & photography.
5. sherry replies at 16th May 2007, 11:12 am :
Tommy, if you follow this link to the Fry & Laurie bit, you’ll find quite a few other videos, among them delightful ones of Hugh Laurie doing a variety of song parodies. He actually has quite a nice singing voice. I think when he did the songs in Jeeves & Wooster, he must have moved up just a bit high in his range so as to make his voice sound sort of reedy & forced.
6. Robert replies at 17th May 2007, 12:59 am :
Glad you liked Wilde. Personally, I thought they didn’t catch enough of the genius of the man to balance against his obvious (and rather beat-to-death) tragic flaw. Maybe it was a lack of directing that had Frye fopping about and sighing, “oh, Bosie” in a patently unconvincing manner. A tragic hero has to first be a hero, and though the real Oscar Wilde remains fascinatingly so, the Frye rendition seemed lukewarm by comparison. Whatever the case, Frye seems so much more dynamic, clever and energetic in these comedy sketches - and therefore, in a way, so much more the Oscar WIlde of our own time - than he did in that film.
7. sherry replies at 17th May 2007, 11:18 am :
Well, Robert, I did think Fry played a surprisingly gentle and soft-spoken Wilde, a bit of a martyr really. I had always thought the man was a bit arrogant. In the scene where he whines “All I asked for is a glass of water,” I probably would have broken the pitcher, too.
That said, my household did find the film interesting both for its daring in addressing sex so directly — though again I couldn’t help but notice that there was a certain selectivity about who got shown nude and how much was shown of that nudity but I don’t mind looking at Jude Law’s bum — and for biographical info about Wilde.
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