Banned: Stephen Fry

Fry Away

I was a bit ill last week. I got home from work and I had a wicked buzzing sound in my head and a temperature. I thought it might be swine flu, but it wasn’t. Anyway, I lay on the couch, unwilling to move even to grab the TV remote control as The One Show started on BBC 1. No, I’m not going to ban The One Show, although it is awful. As I lay there being tortured, Stephen Fry came on as a guest. I don’t like Stephen Fry. Haven’t liked anything he has done or been in since Black Adder. As I watched him turn on his ludicrous tweedy charm, and winced as an endless stream of sheep stood up to bleat about him being a ‘National Treasure’, it hit me. He needs banning. He really does. So, I’d like to ban Stephen Fry this week.

Why Fry, I hear you cry? Let me count the ways. I hate his assumed superiority, which he coats with a layer of self-deprecation. I hate the way he is seen as a startling wit as he spouts quotations from other startling wits. I hate the free ticket he has with the BBC to produce drivel, which is then fawned upon by sycophantic acolytes as if it were groundbreaking. Stephen feeling a bit gloomy? Let him make a series on manic depression. Stephen want to stuff his face and laze around the United States, revealing nothing new about the country and indeed patronising anyone who tuned in thinking he might? Let him do America. Stephen thinks only he has a valid handle on the MP expenses scandal? Let him show his true scorn for the public as he dismisses this stealing as ‘meaningless.’ Then again, Stephen did spend time in prison after stealing a credit card from a family friend. So he probably likes stealing and got irritated when a lot of fellow toffs were getting picked on by bourgeoisie oiks with nothing better to do.

If you were Stephen, you see, you’d have lots of better things to do. Tea adverts. The risible Kingdom. The awful programme for nerdy little showoffs, QI. Writing tediously about the erection he gets every time he sees a new gadget from Apple. Or perhaps taking another chunk of BBC licence money as he jets off around the world to get one last look at some rare species, because sending Fry is like sending Darwin as he and only he can document their demise and report with insight and knowledge to the viewer back home. Or, he can look at the camera with sweat dribbling down his face and say “That’s the most amazing thing I have ever seen.” Again. Of course, if you said, “That’s the most amazing thing I have ever seen,” at such a time Fry would be appalled by your lack of linguistic style, your lack of imagination. Your lack of intelligence. You bourgeoisie oik.

Dull people think Fry is a national treasure. Unimaginative people who are intimidated by his awful, crass show of education and his needy desire to show that he knows a lot about a lot. He’s like the swat at school who wants to answer everything, throwing his hand up and squealing “Me sir!” So sure is he of his own genius he has written a guide to writing poetry. Think about that. A guide to writing poetry. As if there were such a thing. As if Fry could write poetry. As if a guide were needed.

Stephen Fry in America sums up why Fry should be banned. In Alaska, Fry looked to the camera and told us, with great solemnity, that ‘what most people don’t know is that until fairly recently all of this was owned by Russia.’ No, Stephen. Most people, in fact, do know that. Just as they know that food often comes in large portions, the cars can be huge and the USA is a ‘huge melting pot.’ Nothing new was revealed apart from something quite exciting: Stephen Fry has a gap in his enormous knowledge! He doesn’t know shit about America! It’s like he has been living in the 1930s and news of a strange, exotic new place has just reached him via hand-written letter. I’ve heard that the BBC is going to let him do some more programmes to ‘fit in all the stuff he didn’t have room for’. Christ, that will be the 100 Year Series. Anyway, Fry is going to be the Cheshire Cat in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, which is good casting. He looks like he wants to eat himself and leave nothing but a shit-eating grin.