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Speaker 1: You've done all the Harry Potter, how guilty as charged? Yes,

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Speaker 1: my agent had read it, and so there's a children's

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Speaker 1: book and they'd like you to do it for an audio.

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Speaker 1: And I said, it's okay, thinking, you know this half

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Speaker 1: a day's job, isn't it that the cat looks at

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Speaker 1: the dog, the dog looked at the cat. It was

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Speaker 1: nice the end, And that's a children's book. What could

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Speaker 1: be better? It turned out to be a full novel length.

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Speaker 1: But I started reading it and I thought this is

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Speaker 1: about the good. So I agreed to do it. And

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Speaker 1: I turned up and there was Joe Rowling and if

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Speaker 1: she likes to remind you of this, I said, you know,

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Speaker 1: I think this is just wonderful. People are gonna love it.

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Speaker 1: It's such a great thing. If she said, well, I

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Speaker 1: have to Chad, but I've actually I'd already written the

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Speaker 1: second one and it's going to be publised in two months.

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Speaker 1: And I said, good for you, Good for you? Why not?

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Speaker 1: You never know you might get lucky. Oh my god, Hello,

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Speaker 1: I'm Mini driver and welcome to many questions. I've always

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Speaker 1: loved prus questionnaire. It was originally an eighteenth century parlor

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Speaker 1: game meant to reveal an individual's true nature. But with

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Speaker 1: so many questions, there wasn't really an opportunity to expand

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Speaker 1: on anything. So I took the format of Prus's questionnaire

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Speaker 1: and adapted What I think are seven of the most

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Speaker 1: important questions you could ever ask someone. They are when

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Speaker 1: and where were you happiest? What is the quality you

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Speaker 1: like least about yourself? What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines

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Speaker 1: love for you? What question would you most like answered,

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Speaker 1: What person, place, or experience has shaped you the most?

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Speaker 1: What would be your last meal? And can you tell

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Speaker 1: me something in your life that has grown out of

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Speaker 1: a personal disaster. The more people we ask, the more

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Speaker 1: we begin to see what makes us similar and what

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Speaker 1: makes us individual. I've gathered a group of really remarkable

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Speaker 1: people who I am on a and humbled to have

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Speaker 1: had a chance to engage with. My guest today is author, actor, director,

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Speaker 1: and broadcaster intellectual explorer of rare talent, Stephen Fry. I

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Speaker 1: grew up watching Stephen in the two genius British comedy

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Speaker 1: series Blackadder and his show with Hugh Laurie. A bit

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Speaker 1: of Fry and Laurie, but he's also memorably played in

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Speaker 1: his Golden Globe nominated role as Oscar Wild in movie Wild,

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Speaker 1: and he's been in numerous other fantastic films like Gossford

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Speaker 1: Park and A Fish Called Wonder. He's fearlessly explored his

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Speaker 1: own experience with bipolar disorder in the documentary The Secret

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Speaker 1: Life of a Manic Depressive, and since two thousand eleven,

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Speaker 1: has served as the president of the mental health charity Mind.

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Speaker 1: Stephen is a prolific writer to boot and has four

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Speaker 1: novels and three autobiographies in print. I was completely transported

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Speaker 1: by our conversation. Talking to him is like trying to

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Speaker 1: keep up with the shooting star. We talked about everything

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Speaker 1: from Sherlock Holmes to Amazonian tree frogs to the time

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Speaker 1: he went to prison for credit card theft. This is

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Speaker 1: the first half of a wonderful two part episode. When

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Speaker 1: I was thinking about the questions, because I really love

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Speaker 1: Proust's question, I've always loved it. I've always loved listening

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Speaker 1: to people's different answers. They do one in Vanity Fair,

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Speaker 1: don't they? That might have been where I first discovered it.

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Speaker 1: And then I went back and read this sort of

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Speaker 1: full narrative, and then some really fantastically Victorian responses. I

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Speaker 1: chose where and when you were happiest as the first question,

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Speaker 1: largely because we put such a premium on being happy.

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Speaker 1: But I also think that happy nurse. Maybe it's just

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Speaker 1: from where I sit at fifty one. It includes so much.

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Speaker 1: It's the balance to everything. So when I asked that question,

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Speaker 1: I mean it as largely as you can conceive it. Really. Yes, Well,

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Speaker 1: I remember there was a time a few years ago,

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Speaker 1: maybe twenty, when I was desperately trying to give up

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Speaker 1: smoking and all kinds of other things, and I looked

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Speaker 1: into this, this thing called neurolinguistic programming. I'm sure you're

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Speaker 1: aware of it. It's a grand title for a way

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Speaker 1: of making your making your mind obey your will. If

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Speaker 1: you like you you want to do something like giving

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Speaker 1: up smoking, but something's getting in the way, both physical addiction,

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Speaker 1: of course, and something else. We're all familiar with that.

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Speaker 1: It's not easy to will, but it's easy to will

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Speaker 1: to will. In other words, you want to want something,

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Speaker 1: but it's very hard for it anyway. Neuro linguistic programming

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Speaker 1: one of the things they do is they ask you

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Speaker 1: to remember a time, just a snapshot in your memory

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Speaker 1: when you know you were just unbounded in your happiness.

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Speaker 1: You think of something a sunny day on the beach

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Speaker 1: or in a park, maybe that you're very so your

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Speaker 1: mother's let you skip along to buy an ice cream,

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Speaker 1: and you're looking down at the ducks with your brother

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Speaker 1: and everybody's with you, and you're content. You then do

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Speaker 1: something physical like pull out your ear lobe while enjoying

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Speaker 1: that memory, and you keep twisting your ema and you

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Speaker 1: do that several times until the idea of being All

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Speaker 1: you have to do is twist your ear lobe and

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Speaker 1: you will get that memory. And I have to say,

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Speaker 1: I still think to that moment in a park with

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Speaker 1: a with a with an ice cream, and I can

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Speaker 1: get what feels on the inside to be a beatific

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Speaker 1: smile to spread across my face, and I remember happiness.

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Speaker 1: And anyway, that's a thing, that's an exercise you do.

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Speaker 1: So if ever I see you twisting your emb party,

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Speaker 1: I'll know that you're secretly thinking about the ducks and

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Speaker 1: the ice cream exactly. And the idea is you do

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Speaker 1: that when you want a cigarette or you want something

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Speaker 1: you know, because it fills you with the happiness and

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Speaker 1: possibly even with the self supplied drugs, you know, the

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Speaker 1: noor adrenaline, the serotone in, the metatone in all etcetera, etcetera,

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Speaker 1: the endorphins and all that, and maybe it does work,

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Speaker 1: but that was an interesting time. But of course that's

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Speaker 1: a snapshot. It's a vertical moment of happiness, one little

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Speaker 1: drop of bliss. But I would say probably, And this

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Speaker 1: only works looking back because at the time you're young,

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Speaker 1: and when you're young, you're never happy. You're always angst

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Speaker 1: written or wanting to be better looking, or wanting to

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Speaker 1: take someone to bed, or wanting to be asked to

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Speaker 1: go to bed, or or you know, just not feeling

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Speaker 1: clever enough or confident all the rest of it. But

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Speaker 1: those three years I had at university, and particularly the

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Speaker 1: last year when Hugh Laurie became my best friend and

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Speaker 1: we started writing comedy and realizing that we were doing

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Speaker 1: something that gave others pleasure. We could hear the laughter

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Speaker 1: and we felt just charged with optimism and and it

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Speaker 1: was just I you know, because we were very lucky,

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Speaker 1: you know, with me and Hugh and Emma Thompson and

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Speaker 1: Tony Slattery. Our year at university. It was a great

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Speaker 1: footlights collection. I mean honesty, I still have to pinch

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Speaker 1: myself to realize that. But for all kinds of extraordinary

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Speaker 1: provisional contingent things, it might never have happened. I might

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Speaker 1: have been a year earlier, two years earlier, or never

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Speaker 1: have got there. And who knows. Did Rowan Atkinson go

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Speaker 1: to Cambridge? He went to the other place, he went

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Speaker 1: to the other place. We'll not mention that, but I'll

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Speaker 1: tell you a scene which was one of the happiest

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Speaker 1: moments of my life, was we were performing our review

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Speaker 1: in Edinburgh. It happened to be that year in Edinbury

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Speaker 1: eighty one was the first year of a new award

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Speaker 1: called the Perrier Award, which was going to be given

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Speaker 1: to supposedly the best comedy show on the fringe, or

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Speaker 1: at least what the judges thought was the best one thing.

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Speaker 1: We were certain obvious that they wouldn't give it to

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Speaker 1: Boo Cambridge Nears snobs. You know all the horror of that.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, we were doing the show and we finished it.

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Speaker 1: We bowed and there was cheers and applause and all

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Speaker 1: the things that you live for. And then suddenly the

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Speaker 1: applause went wild while we were bowing, and I saw

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Speaker 1: people looking what I thought behind me. So I turned

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Speaker 1: around and that was the figure Rowan Atkinson standing back

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Speaker 1: of the stage on our show. Now he was already

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Speaker 1: a household name because not the nine o'clock News had

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Speaker 1: had I think done too serious already and was a

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Speaker 1: huge hit. And he was holding something and he came forward,

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Speaker 1: um ladies and a gentleman, and he announced that we

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Speaker 1: had won the Peri Award and handed it to us.

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Speaker 1: And there were people waiting in our dressing room from

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Speaker 1: the BBC asking if they could show up our review

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Speaker 1: on BBC two and then the next nights, and people

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Speaker 1: from I t V, which developed into a series with

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Speaker 1: Robbie Coltrane and Ben Alton. And I mean, you know,

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Speaker 1: I sort of resist telling this story because it cost

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Speaker 1: me as the luckiest bustard in the world, and we were.

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Speaker 1: It's as if it's sometimes that I've heard younger comics

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Speaker 1: and actors saying this, that they could almost see the

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Speaker 1: door closing in the eighties and nineties on that sort

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Speaker 1: of thing, you know, graduate comedy from especially from Oxbridge,

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Speaker 1: just waltzing into the BBC. I think it's great. I

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Speaker 1: think so grateful that I grew up watching what you

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Speaker 1: chaps were doing, and that that was a cornerstone of

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Speaker 1: comedy for me, and growing up and seeing it's extraordinary

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Speaker 1: because I was old enough to really laugh and really

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Speaker 1: understand the jokes. But then to go and see what

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Speaker 1: everybody did, what Emma did, what Hugh Laurie did, what

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Speaker 1: you have done, what Rowan has done, what Simon Curtis

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Speaker 1: has done. It's it's so inspiring because that's all I

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Speaker 1: wanted to do, was be a performer. But I didn't

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Speaker 1: have a gang. I always wish they'd had a gang.

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Speaker 1: I was about to say, when I'm asked, and as

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Speaker 1: I'm sure you are, by young drama students or teenagers

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Speaker 1: hoping to go into some aspects of the performing arts,

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Speaker 1: asked to give advice, I can only say, cluster around

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Speaker 1: your friends who have a similar ambition and make your

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Speaker 1: own shows, make your own whatever it is, and get

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Speaker 1: your friends to come and watch them. Because the more

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Speaker 1: you perform, even if it's barely to any kind of

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Speaker 1: paying audience, but the more you do it, the more

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Speaker 1: you get the confidence and the self belief and the

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Speaker 1: idea in your head that you're allowed to because you know,

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Speaker 1: we all grew up watching these glamorous figures. You know.

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Speaker 1: I saw Peter Cook and John Clees on the Parkinson

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Speaker 1: Show or Peter Sellers or whoever it might be, and

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Speaker 1: they were behind the glass in every sense. The idea

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Speaker 1: that one could from tread any aspect of their boards,

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Speaker 1: as it were, was just out of sight, and slowly

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Speaker 1: because of writing with friends and kind of finding out

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Speaker 1: how audiences behave and feeling that one belongs on the stage,

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Speaker 1: it gives one this fabulous idea that you could be

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Speaker 1: part of that huge family of people who are the clowns,

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Speaker 1: the circus and the entertainers. I was constantly deputizing dolls

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Speaker 1: to be my audience, and they always loved everything I did.

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Speaker 1: Of course, that was a standing ovation, as my mother

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Speaker 1: used to say when I used to get my brother

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Speaker 1: to do plays behind the curtain as well, and my

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Speaker 1: mother used to say, without being aware of the preposterousness

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Speaker 1: of the remark, you were both the best thing in it.

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Speaker 1: So you know what. My mother actually said something somewhat

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Speaker 1: similar after a particularly obscure film that I've done, and

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Speaker 1: she was like, gosh, you know, both people who see

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Speaker 1: that will love it. What relationship, real or fictionalized defines

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Speaker 1: love for you? In fact, will you say real and fictionalized,

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Speaker 1: because I want to hear about lovers and defining love

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Speaker 1: with fictionalized characters as well as the real one. Well,

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Speaker 1: I think first love is fictional love to some extent

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Speaker 1: good one. It's so overwhelming, it's expectations are so high,

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Speaker 1: it's consumes the self. It becomes so obsessive and infatuated.

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Speaker 1: And when I was fourteen and a half fifteen, I

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Speaker 1: fell in love with a boy at school. And I

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Speaker 1: had no idea that I was capable of feeling such things.

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Speaker 1: They weren't erotic. A part of them, I suppose, must

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Speaker 1: obviously been erotic, but they were mostly to do with

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Speaker 1: beauty and lyricism and absolute devotion. And every waking moment

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Speaker 1: was concerned with trying to follow the path that I

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Speaker 1: thought he would be taking between this school block and

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Speaker 1: that school block, or he had games that day and

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Speaker 1: so he'd be be on the ruggy field at this

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Speaker 1: time or cricket field at that time. And you know,

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Speaker 1: my whole life has diverted into it. And I suddenly

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Speaker 1: realized that the thing I had hated as a child,

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Speaker 1: this propensity of films to wander off into kissing scenes

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Speaker 1: when there was a good adventure going. What mommy, why

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Speaker 1: are they kissing? You know? The Germans areund the corner

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Speaker 1: and though suddenly he's looking down into a face of

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Speaker 1: that smooching and wasting time, and what's it all about?

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Speaker 1: It just in all song lyrics were loving you, and

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Speaker 1: the Beatles were around. You know. My seventh birthday treat

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Speaker 1: was to go and see a hard day's night, you know,

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Speaker 1: and I love that. There was none of that sopping us.

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Speaker 1: But the lyrics were all she loves you and love love, love,

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Speaker 1: and all you need is love and love this and

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Speaker 1: love that. It made no sense, and the poems one

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Speaker 1: was being taught at school and all about love. Then

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Speaker 1: suddenly it hit me that it was the only thing

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Speaker 1: in the world that mattered, That nothing else had any

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Speaker 1: significance at all except this absolute loss of self into

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Speaker 1: the idea of someone else, and this understanding of why

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Speaker 1: beauty was so important. And it translated into a great

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Speaker 1: sort of dippy adoration of spring and trees and blossom

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Speaker 1: and birds. Did you get to tell him that you

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Speaker 1: loved him? He knew I never quite expressed it in

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Speaker 1: those ways. I think it's quite probably quite hard to

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Speaker 1: to hide a little rumpy pumpy tussle in the grass

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Speaker 1: once and that was good, oh it, But that was

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Speaker 1: fictional inasmuch as it was. It belonged to a Petrarchyan

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Speaker 1: idea of ideal love or Shakespearean's sonet idea or whatever,

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Speaker 1: you know. It was absolutely nothing to do with what

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Speaker 1: I now think of his love, which is naturally me

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Speaker 1: and my husband, which is contentment, companionship. Yes, I mean

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Speaker 1: all the all the joy were of our first meeting

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Speaker 1: and realizing we were soul mates and made for each other,

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Speaker 1: and the happiness and the extra special pleasure that it

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Speaker 1: coincided exactly with the time when we could get married

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Speaker 1: legally in this country, which was so fabulous. I think

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Speaker 1: that's rather a good trajectory to begin with a fictionalized

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Speaker 1: reality and to wind up in really something. You know,

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Speaker 1: the marriage between two men or two women was a

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Speaker 1: complete fiction until very recently. I think that's a wonderful

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Speaker 1: path to have begun in that place and to have

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Speaker 1: wound up in this other place. I think that's a

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Speaker 1: beautiful bookend and should all be so lucky, And that

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Speaker 1: you've got rumpy pumpy like the yeah, but the fact

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Speaker 1: that it was actualized. There's an ideal devotion of you know,

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Speaker 1: sneaking around buildings, staring at your your love. That it

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Speaker 1: actually materialized into the long grass makes me very happy.

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Speaker 1: It was mainly happy, as you can imagine. Underneath it

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Speaker 1: was the misery of the realization that for him it

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Speaker 1: might have been an amusing episode, but for me it

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Speaker 1: was part of what I absolutely instinctively understood was my nature,

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Speaker 1: which was that I would only ever fall in other

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Speaker 1: people of my own sects, and that I was never

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Speaker 1: going to be therefore accepted by society. Because that same

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Speaker 1: knowledge had driven me to the library, because in those days,

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Speaker 1: of course, there was no online there was no affirmation

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Speaker 1: or vindication of sexuality available except in the forbidden by

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Speaker 1: ways of literature, not pornography, but stories like Oscar Wilde's

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Speaker 1: trial or various other people exiled to Rocco and Capri

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Speaker 1: in the Mediterranean, generally where a slightly more LuSE lifestyle

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Speaker 1: was acceptable, and otherwise it was skulking in the shadows,

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Speaker 1: and it was you know, it was the terrible fear

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Speaker 1: of the police, courts and and shame. Did you think

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Speaker 1: of that at fourteen and fifteen when you first fell

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Speaker 1: in love. I was aware that my whole interior life

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Speaker 1: would have to be a secret. At least I thought

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00:17:27,359 --> 00:17:29,479
Speaker 1: that would would be a secret that I would never

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Speaker 1: be able to share with anyone except through books. You know.

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Speaker 1: And for all the horrors we attribute to social media

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Speaker 1: and the email and the whole digital world, now, it

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00:17:39,280 --> 00:17:42,000
Speaker 1: had that been available to me, it would have completely

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Speaker 1: altered the way I felt, because I would have been

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Speaker 1: more instantly to discover that I was not alone and

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Speaker 1: that I was not criminal, I was not creepy, I

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Speaker 1: was not a pervert. You should be punished because I

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Speaker 1: knew that although sex was important, it was really love

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Speaker 1: that was the massive thing. And that's, of course what

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Speaker 1: has been allowed by this acceptance and legislation and everything,

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Speaker 1: is people can love each other. Yeah, exactly what is

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Speaker 1: the quality, at least about yourself? I give answers that

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Speaker 1: people can get very annoyed by because they sound like

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Speaker 1: false modesty or surd expectations. But I know that, as

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Speaker 1: far as other people canse, I'm not lazy, and yet

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Speaker 1: I still feel lazy in myself. I still feel there's

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Speaker 1: always more I could do. In my husband, it's driven

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00:18:34,720 --> 00:18:38,160
Speaker 1: crazy by my need not to see a single red

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Speaker 1: notification badge in my email box. I have to answered everything,

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Speaker 1: I have to have done the thank you letters and

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Speaker 1: the bread and button letters, and I have to be

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Speaker 1: on top of things. And I always say to him

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Speaker 1: it's because I so hate it. I want to get

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Speaker 1: it out of the way. I'm the same with washing

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Speaker 1: up or anything. It's a peculiar, but that seems like

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Speaker 1: a very good thing. That it seem like a bad

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Speaker 1: thing at all. I wish I did the washing up. No,

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Speaker 1: I know it's not a bad thing. That it annoys me,

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Speaker 1: that I'm so that I'm so anxious about it, and

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Speaker 1: I can't be more relaxed. But you're right, it's not

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Speaker 1: the thing I hate about myself most. I think my

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Speaker 1: anxiety to please, my inability to rest until I feel

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Speaker 1: that everybody is unoffended by me and possibly even likes

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Speaker 1: me or is pleased with me, and it doesn't come

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Speaker 1: away with a wrong idea about me, or what I

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Speaker 1: think is a wrong idea about me. And I'm aware

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Speaker 1: that this desire to please is transparent. That's to say

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Speaker 1: others can see it. I mean, I've actually happened. I

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Speaker 1: don't seek them out but I've happened on the odd

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00:19:41,800 --> 00:19:46,600
Speaker 1: phrase online or in the press saying his overwhelming desire

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Speaker 1: to be liked or whatever, and I think, yeah, that

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Speaker 1: they're right, and it's you know, the people I most

330
00:19:52,200 --> 00:19:55,200
Speaker 1: like aren't like me. I suppose that's the way I

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00:19:55,200 --> 00:19:57,840
Speaker 1: should put it, that you know, they it's not that

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00:19:57,880 --> 00:20:01,200
Speaker 1: they absolutely don't care who to what people think about

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00:20:01,240 --> 00:20:03,800
Speaker 1: them and are sort of quite happy to be cruel

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00:20:03,840 --> 00:20:09,760
Speaker 1: and unkind or dismissive or not to answer letters or whatever.

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00:20:10,080 --> 00:20:12,080
Speaker 1: It's not that, it's just that it doesn't seem to

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Speaker 1: possess them quite as it does me. I don't know

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00:20:15,440 --> 00:20:19,080
Speaker 1: where it comes from, but it's a it's a desire

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00:20:19,119 --> 00:20:21,720
Speaker 1: to please. It's that little Jack Horner, what a good

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00:20:21,720 --> 00:20:24,359
Speaker 1: boy am I? Sort of thing that I know is

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00:20:24,480 --> 00:20:30,680
Speaker 1: very obvious in me. Well, I think you're great. I've

341
00:20:31,200 --> 00:20:35,080
Speaker 1: done it. Can't cross that off the list, take at

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00:20:35,119 --> 00:20:50,200
Speaker 1: least until tomorrow. What person, place, or experience has most

343
00:20:50,280 --> 00:20:57,760
Speaker 1: altered your life? Well, I think I would go back

344
00:20:58,000 --> 00:21:01,199
Speaker 1: to an occasion my screw up in the country and

345
00:21:01,280 --> 00:21:04,720
Speaker 1: quite a large house. It's not Tonton Abbey, but you know,

346
00:21:04,960 --> 00:21:07,720
Speaker 1: it was big and it was very old fashioned. It

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00:21:07,800 --> 00:21:11,040
Speaker 1: wasn't on the mains water. We had sort of pump

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Speaker 1: house somewhere in in the back to pump up the water,

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00:21:14,200 --> 00:21:16,920
Speaker 1: and the bread man would come on a horse and cart.

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Speaker 1: You know. When I was young, it was a very

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00:21:19,440 --> 00:21:22,479
Speaker 1: rural and peculiar and fun sort of life I supposed

352
00:21:22,520 --> 00:21:24,840
Speaker 1: to grow up in. But one thing my purchase did

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Speaker 1: not like was television. There was one kept in a

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Speaker 1: cupboard somewhere, was a tiny little thing, and if if

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Speaker 1: a member of the royal family married or got or died,

356
00:21:33,640 --> 00:21:37,199
Speaker 1: or Winston Churchill's funerals say, or the moon landing, the

357
00:21:37,240 --> 00:21:39,399
Speaker 1: television would be got out and sat in a corner

358
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Speaker 1: and told to behave itself, and then put away again.

359
00:21:42,400 --> 00:21:45,000
Speaker 1: But occasionally my father that the stable block of the

360
00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:47,639
Speaker 1: house had been converted to a laboratory for my father

361
00:21:48,280 --> 00:21:51,119
Speaker 1: physicist inventor sort of figure, and so he would sometimes

362
00:21:51,119 --> 00:21:53,520
Speaker 1: spend days over that would be like Sherlock Combs, you know,

363
00:21:53,640 --> 00:21:57,919
Speaker 1: just completely lost amongst his equipment. And and then I

364
00:21:57,960 --> 00:22:00,439
Speaker 1: would especially was raining and there's nothing else to do,

365
00:22:00,520 --> 00:22:03,040
Speaker 1: I would take the television out and secretly watch it.

366
00:22:03,400 --> 00:22:06,080
Speaker 1: One afternoon a Sunday afternoon, I turned it on and

367
00:22:06,080 --> 00:22:09,520
Speaker 1: it something had just started, and people were talking to

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Speaker 1: each other in the most extraordinary way. I've never heard

369
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Speaker 1: anything like it. It wasn't Shakespeare, but it wasn't contemporary.

370
00:22:17,600 --> 00:22:20,199
Speaker 1: I was not old enough to recognize it, but I

371
00:22:20,240 --> 00:22:24,040
Speaker 1: was old enough to recognize that it was stunning. And

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Speaker 1: I watched it with my mouth open because of the

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Speaker 1: way people were speaking. And it finished with a curtain dropping,

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00:22:31,440 --> 00:22:34,199
Speaker 1: so the camera had sort of been inside in a

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Speaker 1: real world. And then at the end it pulled back

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00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:38,320
Speaker 1: and the curtain fell, as if to suggest that it

377
00:22:38,359 --> 00:22:40,800
Speaker 1: was a play. So I rushed off to see my mother,

378
00:22:40,880 --> 00:22:42,720
Speaker 1: and there was a particular line in it. You know

379
00:22:42,760 --> 00:22:45,520
Speaker 1: how something When a movie is really good, you remember

380
00:22:45,640 --> 00:22:48,399
Speaker 1: almost every detail of it, and when a movie is

381
00:22:48,560 --> 00:22:54,560
Speaker 1: colossal garbage, you cannot remember a single scene. And I

382
00:22:54,600 --> 00:22:57,120
Speaker 1: remembered so much of this just watching at once, including

383
00:22:57,160 --> 00:23:00,119
Speaker 1: this speech where a man whom I subsequently discovered was

384
00:23:00,119 --> 00:23:03,119
Speaker 1: the actor Michael Dennison says to a woman whom I

385
00:23:03,200 --> 00:23:07,399
Speaker 1: subsequently discovered was the actress Dorothy Tutin. He said, I

386
00:23:07,440 --> 00:23:09,439
Speaker 1: hope I will not in any way offend you if

387
00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:10,800
Speaker 1: I say that. You seem to me to be the

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00:23:10,880 --> 00:23:15,359
Speaker 1: visible personification of absolute perfection. And I thought that was

389
00:23:15,400 --> 00:23:18,959
Speaker 1: the most extraordinary line I've ever It was funny because

390
00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:21,760
Speaker 1: of course, if you declare love to someone, you don't

391
00:23:21,840 --> 00:23:25,840
Speaker 1: use Latin at words like visible personification of absolute perfection.

392
00:23:26,040 --> 00:23:28,280
Speaker 1: You say I love you. You're gorgeous, you know that's what.

393
00:23:28,640 --> 00:23:32,560
Speaker 1: But and yet it was a beautiful compliment and courtly.

394
00:23:32,600 --> 00:23:34,760
Speaker 1: And so I ran to my mother and said, mother,

395
00:23:34,800 --> 00:23:36,399
Speaker 1: I hope I shan't offend it if I say that.

396
00:23:36,480 --> 00:23:37,600
Speaker 1: You seemed to me to be, in every way the

397
00:23:37,680 --> 00:23:40,720
Speaker 1: visible personification of absolute perfection. She said, what are you

398
00:23:40,760 --> 00:23:42,800
Speaker 1: talking about. I said, I've seen this thing, and I

399
00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:45,399
Speaker 1: explained it. She said, oh, that was the importance of

400
00:23:45,400 --> 00:23:48,919
Speaker 1: being earnest. And I said, well, what is it? And

401
00:23:48,960 --> 00:23:51,199
Speaker 1: she explained it was a play. Now, we were so

402
00:23:51,280 --> 00:23:55,240
Speaker 1: deep in the country that were miles Sydney Smith once said,

403
00:23:55,600 --> 00:24:01,040
Speaker 1: miles simply miles from the nearest lemon. But we were

404
00:24:01,080 --> 00:24:05,560
Speaker 1: we were. We were also miles from the nearest library.

405
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:08,040
Speaker 1: And so what we what had in those days? I

406
00:24:08,040 --> 00:24:11,160
Speaker 1: don't know if they still do this little gray vans,

407
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:14,760
Speaker 1: the kind that would be called antechnical news. We had

408
00:24:14,800 --> 00:24:18,640
Speaker 1: a van like that, a library vane, a mobile library. Yeah,

409
00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:20,480
Speaker 1: and it would come too. There was a crossing of

410
00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:22,359
Speaker 1: the roads about a quarter of a mile from our house,

411
00:24:22,920 --> 00:24:26,240
Speaker 1: cut lanes met and it would stop there on Thursday afternoons.

412
00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:28,800
Speaker 1: Would you wait for it? Yeah? I waited for it.

413
00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:31,879
Speaker 1: On the corner. The driver got out and wheezed his

414
00:24:31,920 --> 00:24:34,800
Speaker 1: way around the front bonnet and opened the side door,

415
00:24:35,240 --> 00:24:38,359
Speaker 1: let down the steps, and patted my bottom as I

416
00:24:38,400 --> 00:24:43,200
Speaker 1: went into the library. And and there was a little

417
00:24:43,280 --> 00:24:46,680
Speaker 1: lady in there with powdery soft cheeks and little little

418
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:50,159
Speaker 1: glasses on a chain. And I asked her if she

419
00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:53,720
Speaker 1: had the importance of being earnest by Mr Oscar Wilde.

420
00:24:54,160 --> 00:24:57,120
Speaker 1: She gave me this collection of his comic plays, four

421
00:24:57,160 --> 00:25:00,480
Speaker 1: of the Women of No Importance, Ideal Husband and Lady

422
00:25:00,560 --> 00:25:07,040
Speaker 1: vander Meer's Win. I got this and um and I

423
00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:09,080
Speaker 1: read them for I kept them for the week, and

424
00:25:09,119 --> 00:25:11,320
Speaker 1: I read until I and I knew the importance almost

425
00:25:11,320 --> 00:25:13,399
Speaker 1: off by heart. I could still quit most of it.

426
00:25:13,520 --> 00:25:16,119
Speaker 1: And I just fell in love with the language. And

427
00:25:16,119 --> 00:25:17,520
Speaker 1: then I went back and I said, have you got

428
00:25:17,560 --> 00:25:20,399
Speaker 1: any more by this writer? And she stamped out a

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Speaker 1: new book, the Complete Works of Oscar World. I took

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Speaker 1: them home and I read these fairy stories as an

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Speaker 1: amazing sort of the Happy Prince and the Young King

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00:25:28,640 --> 00:25:31,239
Speaker 1: and all these, and some I didn't understand. There were

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00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 1: some very sort of grown up essays, like the Soul

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Speaker 1: of Man under Socialism, and one which we should be

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00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:42,159
Speaker 1: reading now called The Truth of Masks, very appropriate. And

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00:25:42,200 --> 00:25:43,920
Speaker 1: then I went back the next week and I said,

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00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:45,600
Speaker 1: have you got any more? And she said, well, if

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00:25:45,640 --> 00:25:49,200
Speaker 1: that's ay the complete works, that that's probably the complete works.

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00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:52,720
Speaker 1: And I said oh, And I started to look around,

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00:25:52,800 --> 00:25:55,600
Speaker 1: and then I saw a book called The Trials of

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00:25:55,600 --> 00:25:58,560
Speaker 1: Oscar World, by a man called hell Montgomery Hide. And

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00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:00,720
Speaker 1: she said, I'm not sure that's appropriate for you. And

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00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:04,400
Speaker 1: I said, no, no, I'm I'm studying this writer even nothing.

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00:26:06,119 --> 00:26:08,200
Speaker 1: So she standed up, let me read it. And there

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00:26:08,200 --> 00:26:13,320
Speaker 1: I read about this extraordinary man is warmth, his generosity,

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00:26:13,640 --> 00:26:20,679
Speaker 1: his wit, his gift genius for friendship, and then I

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00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:23,240
Speaker 1: kind of lived with him as he was pulled down

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00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:26,800
Speaker 1: into the greatest and most terrible scandal of the Victorian

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00:26:26,920 --> 00:26:30,680
Speaker 1: Age and ended up in Paris, despised and rejected of men,

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00:26:30,760 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 1: as I puts it, and died a miserable death, thinking

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00:26:33,640 --> 00:26:36,520
Speaker 1: he would be perhaps forgotten or always in disgrace in

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00:26:36,600 --> 00:26:39,800
Speaker 1: men's eyes, and it just took the wind out of

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Speaker 1: myself because I knew that I had that thing in me,

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Speaker 1: that the reason he was pulled down would be the

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00:26:44,840 --> 00:26:49,200
Speaker 1: reason I might do this belief that I'd never been accepted.

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00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:50,679
Speaker 1: So there was on the one hand, there was the

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Speaker 1: joy of discovering literature and how language can because many

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00:26:55,240 --> 00:26:58,879
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't dance, I can't paint, draw, you know,

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00:26:59,080 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 1: I'm not athletic. Those ways people have an expressing joy

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00:27:03,600 --> 00:27:07,280
Speaker 1: and delight and texture and thrill all for me are

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00:27:07,359 --> 00:27:10,080
Speaker 1: in words proceeding out of my mouth or put on

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00:27:10,080 --> 00:27:13,800
Speaker 1: a page. And in our culture, not uniquely, I think

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00:27:14,160 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 1: we're not encouraged to believe that language, which is the

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00:27:17,119 --> 00:27:20,359
Speaker 1: gift we all share, and there's a very strong dysfunction,

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00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:25,520
Speaker 1: is not just for saying past the mustard and where toileted,

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00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:28,800
Speaker 1: but it is actually something that can be used to

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00:27:29,040 --> 00:27:33,040
Speaker 1: entrance and delight and seduce and beguile and thrill and

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00:27:33,080 --> 00:27:37,080
Speaker 1: deceive and create as much art as a paintbrush or

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00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:40,600
Speaker 1: a cello can. Just in the sound of the tongue

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00:27:40,680 --> 00:27:42,919
Speaker 1: hitting the back of the teeth, there's a beauty and

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00:27:42,960 --> 00:27:45,320
Speaker 1: a majesty and a glory. That's one of the reasons

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00:27:45,400 --> 00:27:47,520
Speaker 1: I admired people like M and M and some of

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00:27:47,520 --> 00:27:51,240
Speaker 1: the great hip hop artists is because they have brought

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00:27:51,359 --> 00:27:56,800
Speaker 1: language really back into popular art in a strong way.

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00:27:57,119 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 1: And an Oscar was the first to do that. For

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00:28:00,160 --> 00:28:04,080
Speaker 1: lit that like many other things. So I think everything

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00:28:04,080 --> 00:28:07,280
Speaker 1: flowed from that. It woke me up, That's what That's

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00:28:07,320 --> 00:28:12,640
Speaker 1: what lit a fire in me. That still it still burns. Stephen.

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00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:14,920
Speaker 1: I end up that so much. I had. I had

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00:28:14,960 --> 00:28:18,199
Speaker 1: awesome wells reading a selfish giant on a record that

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00:28:18,280 --> 00:28:20,600
Speaker 1: I listened to and I was about five or six,

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00:28:20,640 --> 00:28:26,080
Speaker 1: and I this is my garden. It is. It is

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00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:31,439
Speaker 1: so brilliant. Anyone find it. Everybody should listen to it.

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00:28:31,840 --> 00:28:38,240
Speaker 1: The children are my flowers. Yes, it's glorious. I only

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00:28:38,320 --> 00:28:41,560
Speaker 1: have to hear those. And I can smell an old

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00:28:41,600 --> 00:28:44,880
Speaker 1: fashioned gramophone and the rest that went on, you know

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00:28:44,960 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 1: that dust it warmed up with little crackle. Join me

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00:28:52,320 --> 00:28:55,600
Speaker 1: next week for the second half of my conversation with

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Speaker 1: Stephen Fry. Mini Quests is hosted and written by Me

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00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:09,360
Speaker 1: Mini Driver, supervising producer Aaron Kaufman, producer Morgan Lavoy, research

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00:29:09,400 --> 00:29:15,240
Speaker 1: assistant Marissa Brown, original music Sorry Baby by Mini Driver,

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00:29:16,560 --> 00:29:21,440
Speaker 1: Additional music by Aaron Kaufman. Executive produced by Me Mini Driver.

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00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:27,200
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Jim Nikolay, Will Pearson, Addison No Day,

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00:29:28,080 --> 00:29:33,320
Speaker 1: Lisa Castella and Annicke Oppenheim at w kPr de La Pescador,

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00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:38,360
Speaker 1: Kate Driver and Jason Weinberg, and for constantly solicited tech

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00:29:38,400 --> 00:29:40,080
Speaker 1: support Henry Driver,