Stephen Fry in America

User Reviews

Stephen Fry visits all 50 states - Rating: 5/5

I ran across the listing for this on Amazon UK, & immediately snapped it up(along with "Robbie Coltrane's B-Road Britain"). This would be perfect to be shown on PBS, but BBCAmerica will probably show it, wedged amongst the tabloid & "reality" TV that channel7 seems to have become infested with, and have more terrible commercials than program, and PBS will show more Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, & Susan Powter infommercials instead of the type of programming that made its name.
But this program was exactly what I expected, with Fry's wry & dry commentary, letting us come along as he crosses the US, in a left-hand drive London-style taxi. What I didn't expect was that he would actually bad-mouth certain places, the most glaring of which must remain nameless....but there was a TV show about it in the 80's with a couple of dicks named Tubbs & Crockett. Usually travel programs are all sweetness & light, but we see quite a few American warts. When visiting St. Louis, we see the Arch: it's never mentioned, but instead Fry spends the segment with a group of homeless...actually they're not homeless- home is an abandoned factory.
Far too much time was spent in Las Vegas, but I guess Mr Fry can be excused: his time was spent with Chippendale dancers & at a Mormon men beefcake calendar shoot, and if I was going to send someone I like to Colorado, I certainly wouldn't send them to Aspen. Could have been worse, though, he could have gone to Vail. And unfortunately, it wasn't raining in Seattle, which is one cause he never mentioned when discussing the Jet City's high suicide rate.
Like Bill Bryson and Michael Palin, Stephen Fry doesn't take himself too seriously, although he does show off his erudition while at the Mormon men shoot, and the man he's talking to basically says "I have no idea what you just said."
The fact this is soon to be available in the US is a good omen. Hopefully Fry's QI TV show may become available. That's a great show, but not stupid enough to be cloned by the powers who run American TV. QI is Quite Interesting, but for right now is just available out of the UK in Region 2 format, or a few clips on YouTube, but if you enjoy Stephen Fry, I highly recommend this, as well as his podcast.