page_title: Stephen Fry
section_title: Comedy
hierarchical_section_title: Stephen Fry / Career / Comedy
caption_attribution_description: English: Image depicting Stephen Fry signing books and other items at an Apple Store in London.
context_page_description: Stephen John Fry is an English actor, comedian and writer. He and Hugh Laurie are the comic double act Fry and Laurie, who starred in A Bit of Fry & Laurie and Jeeves and Wooster.
  Fry's film acting roles include playing his idol Oscar Wilde in the film Wilde, a performance which saw him nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, Inspector Thompson in Robert Altman's murder mystery Gosford Park, and Mr. Johnson in Whit Stillman's Love & Friendship. He also made appearances in Chariots of Fire, A Fish Called Wanda, and The Life and Death of Peter Sellers as well as V for Vendetta, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, and The Hobbit film series. Fry is also known for his roles in television such as Lord Melchett in the BBC television comedy series Blackadder, the title character in the television series Kingdom, and Absolute Power, as well as a recurring guest role as Dr Gordon Wyatt on the American crime series Bones. He has also written and presented several documentary series, including the Emmy Award-winning Stephen Fry: The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, which saw him explore his bipolar disorder, and the travel series Stephen Fry in America.
context_section_description: Fry's career in television began with the 1982 broadcasting of The Cellar Tapes, the 1981 Cambridge Footlights Revue which was written by Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery. The revue caught the attention of Granada Television, who, keen to replicate the success of the BBC's Not the Nine O'Clock News, hired Fry, Laurie and Thompson to star alongside Ben Elton in There's Nothing to Worry About!. A second series, retitled Alfresco, was broadcast in 1983, and a third in 1984; it established Fry and Laurie's reputation as a comedy double act. In 1983, the BBC offered Fry, Laurie and Thompson their own show, which became The Crystal Cube, a mixture of science fiction and mockumentary that was cancelled after the first episode. Undeterred, Fry and Laurie appeared in an episode of The Young Ones in 1984, and Fry also appeared in Ben Elton's 1985 Happy Families series. In April 1986, Fry was among the British comedians who appeared in the first live telethon Comic Relief. In 1986 and 1987, Fry and Laurie performed sketches on the LWT/Channel 4 show Saturday Live.
  Forgiving Fry and Laurie for The Crystal Cube, the BBC commissioned, in 1986, a sketch show that was to become A Bit of Fry & Laurie. Following a 1987 pilot, the programme ran for 26 episodes across four series between 1989 and 1995. During this time, Fry starred in Blackadder II as Lord Melchett, made a guest appearance in Blackadder the Third as the Duke of Wellington, then returned to a starring role in Blackadder Goes Forth, as General Melchett. In a 1988 television special, Blackadder's Christmas Carol, he played the roles of Lord Melchett and Lord Frondo. Between 1990 and 1993, Fry starred as Jeeves (alongside Hugh Laurie's Bertie Wooster) in Jeeves and Wooster, 23 hour-long adaptations of P. G. Wodehouse's novels and short stories.
  Towards the end of 2003, Fry starred alongside John Bird in the television adaptation of Absolute Power, previously a radio series on BBC Radio 4. In 2010, Fry took part in a Christmas series of short films called Little Crackers. His short was based on a story from his childhood at school. He appeared as the Christian God in 2011's Holy Flying Circus. In January 2016, it was announced that Fry would be appearing as the character "Cuddly Dick" in Series 3 of the Sky One family comedy Yonderland. In 2016, Fry had a lead role in the American sitcom The Great Indoors. He portrayed an outdoor magazine publisher helping to ease his best worldly reporter (Joel McHale) into a desk job. The show was cancelled after one season.
  He reprised his role as (a descendant of) Lord Melchett for The Big Night In, a 20 April 2020 telethon held during the COVID-19 pandemic, in a skit which he held a video call with Prince William, Duke of Cambridge, who made a surprise appearance.
caption: Fry signing autographs at the Apple Store, Regent Street, London, on 3 February 2009
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