In which our heroes chat entertainingly.

November 28, 2010 11:12 PM

Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie reunite for a 90 minute TV special to mark the 30th anniversary of their partnership. The programme sees the former double act reminiscing about their friendship, careers and sketches. Parts I II III IV V
posted by lazaruslong (37 comments total)

90 minutes?!? So much for bed.
posted by thecjm at 11:15 PM on November 28, 2010 [3 favorites]

Soupy twist!
posted by crossoverman at 11:47 PM on November 28, 2010 [4 favorites]

Part of me want to watch this immediately... yet it should be enjoyed with a warming alcoholic beverage, wrapped up in a silk dressing gown after a long relaxing bubble bath.

On the other hand I have a toddler full of ice blocks and a vomiting husband so *click*
posted by gomichild at 12:00 AM on November 29, 2010 [6 favorites]

Good god, man. I need to go to sleep, not to stay up and watch this. Why didn't you post it tomorrow when all I have to do is work?
posted by ooga_booga at 12:24 AM on November 29, 2010 [4 favorites]

Just in case anybody doesn't know, Hugh was on QI's first ep (parts 1 2 3), so they have been on screen together a bit more recently than 15 years ago.
posted by kmz at 12:30 AM on November 29, 2010

I really hope the finally reveal where the lid is. It's been bugging me for years.
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 12:36 AM on November 29, 2010

heh. nationaltreasure tag.
posted by juv3nal at 12:44 AM on November 29, 2010

Too talented, too smart, too funny. I'd hate them if I didn't love them.

(p.s. Uppity Pigeon--I live in hope that one day we will awaken to the news that the lid has been located. Today is not that day.)
posted by tzikeh at 12:56 AM on November 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Ah, 'twas nice to see Hugh's original audition tape for House.
posted by crossoverman at 12:59 AM on November 29, 2010

For those unfamiliar here is the full Mystery. For my money the best comedy song, well, kind of, ever.
posted by victors at 1:04 AM on November 29, 2010

Also, pedant city here, but: it's not actually 90 minutes. I thru IV are 15 minutes apiece and V is 8:51.
posted by juv3nal at 1:05 AM on November 29, 2010

back alley pendant: shit happens to 68:51 when you add commercials
posted by victors at 1:19 AM on November 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Well, lazaruslong, you've made my night.
posted by squasha at 2:44 AM on November 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm late for class but I had to watch them all.
I wonder why they filmed those exterior scenes when they never really used them.
posted by Memo at 2:57 AM on November 29, 2010

Damn you all, I didn't even click on the link and have been singing "Where is the lid?" to myself for the past hour.
posted by penguin pie at 4:02 AM on November 29, 2010

Sweet.

Did anyone see a wee glint of doubt when Stephen claimed he never fancied Hugh?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:27 AM on November 29, 2010

Now that is a lot of Fry and Laurie.

When, as an impressionable young... youth, I first discovered Fry and Laurie late one night on the ABC — because this was long before the internet let teenagers instantly become experts on any topic they had the slightest interest in, when, in the absence of mentors, we had to discover great things the slow and painful way, winnowing them from the 95% of everything that is crap — I felt like a bewigged Enlightenment toff encountering the music of Beethoven for the first time after a lifetime of admiring Bach and Mozart. I knew of and had even seen many episodes of the Goodies and Monty Python and Fawlty Towers, and loved them, but here was a comedy that took those principles and forged them into a new achievement the likes of which I had never even imagined. It was both more personal and more universal, not to mention funnier.

So what I'm saying is that I knew House before he was cool.
posted by No-sword at 5:43 AM on November 29, 2010 [6 favorites]

Before he was uncool.
posted by blucevalo at 5:47 AM on November 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Emma Thompson: ...this business we call....show.

God, I love her.
posted by thanotopsis at 6:10 AM on November 29, 2010 [6 favorites]

I need a repeat favorites button so hard here. Damn computer, never works when you need it.
posted by Namlit at 6:57 AM on November 29, 2010

My parents used to let me stay up really really really late when I was wee and watch British TV shows (back when MTV was mostly music and only played stuff like The Young Ones and The Comic Strip and French & Saunders and stuff on Sunday nights). Thank you, parents...
posted by bitter-girl.com at 7:10 AM on November 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

I've been watching this for 10 minutes, and the announcer is still introducing the program. Surely this has to be part of the joke?
posted by schmod at 7:50 AM on November 29, 2010

...this business we call....show.

"...the great industry of biz that we call show," you mean. It's even better. :)

Thanks, lazarus, you've just made a lot of people in my workplace very happy.
posted by mediareport at 7:56 AM on November 29, 2010

I'm so glad you all are enjoying it. I end up on YouTube searching for Stephen Fry with results sorted by upload date about once a month or so, and couldn't believe my luck when I saw this had just been uploaded. I waited a whole day before remembering...."Oh shit, MeFights would love this!"
posted by lazaruslong at 8:15 AM on November 29, 2010

No reflection on my (deep) affection for both of them, but that is a really badly made TV show. What a missed opportunity. Thanks for the links though.
posted by The Ultimate Olympian at 8:16 AM on November 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

Yeah, the show was pretty horrendous, I thought. Too much trying-to-be-funny narrative framing and not enough of just them being them. And really, we know they talk and visit each other all the time, so the super hyped "reunion" stuff was kind of strange.

Also, no hedge sketch?
posted by marginaliana at 8:49 AM on November 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Also, no hedge sketch?
posted by marginaliana at 4:49 PM on November 29


Good morning sir! How can I help you?
posted by Decani at 9:12 AM on November 29, 2010 [2 favorites]

Laurie's Protest Song is great too.
posted by chavenet at 10:43 AM on November 29, 2010

Arglebargled as I was that the frontispiece theater of the Footlights thespian ensemble was neither touched upon nor glanced at, I found to my great and thorough delectation that an outtake had, indubitably, been taken out and could be beheld upon that Tube of You alongside other fare which fared poorly on the bare floor of the cutting room including snips where the pair discuss mishaps de petit déjeuner and Messieurs Higson and Whitehouse holding forth on the exhaustion of comedic labor.

sorry, this happens sometimes when I overdose on Stephen Fry
posted by Kattullus at 10:51 AM on November 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Although this show seems to focus (rightly so) on A Bit of Fry and Laurie, they were also brilliant in Blackadder. BWAAAAAAAAAH.
posted by Harry at 11:34 AM on November 29, 2010

I love that you really can see in Hugh Laurie's eyes as they're talking just how much he loves Stephen.
posted by penguin pie at 4:21 PM on November 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

I love that you really can see in Hugh Laurie's eyes as they're talking just how much he loves Stephen.

Yes, as the Ultimate Olympian and marginalia (speaking of odd couples) note, the show itself comes across as a very lazy and half-assed effort, but it is still so watchable when those two are on the screen together. It's not just that they're both geniuses in their own right, although they are; their bond is just so powerful that you can almost reach out and touch it.

(That, or they're very good at faking such a bond, and as soon as the cameras go off they light up cigarettes and say "Michelle, I'll be in the car; tell that man that I haven't forgotten the twenty pounds from 1983 yet" to their handlers as they storm out separate exits. But I don't think either of them needs to fake anything like that at this point in their careers.)

That brief clip in the first video where they do a (presumably impromptu) recreation of the Fry and Laurie closing bit where Laurie plays piano and fakes trumpet while Fry mixes a cocktail — which, in itself, was such an endearing, two-friends-messing-around bit — and Fry is totally out of practice but neither of them seem to care... well, I think I got something in my eye. While I was wiping a tear of emotion out of it, I mean.
posted by No-sword at 6:21 PM on November 29, 2010 [4 favorites]

Netflix has got all of A Bit of Fry and Laurie available on their streaming service. It is indeed fantastic.
posted by rifflesby at 11:21 PM on November 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

That was great. Thank you!
posted by flippant at 3:27 AM on November 30, 2010

schmod I've been watching this for 10 minutes, and the announcer is still introducing the program.

Yes, exactly what I was thinking. The editing is pretty awful, but I think that's "the style" these days. Which is one reason why I don't watch much tv anymore. It was worth suffering through just this once, though.
posted by fartknocker at 6:17 PM on November 30, 2010 [1 favorite]

It was a poorly put-together programme with far too much interstitial arse, to borrow a word the estimable Mr. Laurie introduced during the proceedings. I would have much preferred it if the thing had been a bare half hour of the two of them talking.
posted by Decani at 12:59 PM on December 1, 2010

Finally got to watch this (yay being home with a sore throat and fever?) and I quite enjoyed it.

The caricatures of Fry and Laurie very much reminded me of caricatures of Gilbert and Sullivan, like these.
posted by ocherdraco at 11:42 AM on December 2, 2010