Albeit only for an anniversary special, but this is good good news. The BBC is reporting that a retrospective/special kind of thing starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie will be broadcast here in the autumn.
I loved Fry and Laurie together, I’ve always thought they bring out the best in one another. I may make my favourite cocktail in celebration, that’s an ‘everything in the till and no sudden moves’ of course. Please, Mr. Music - will you play?
If you’re even slightly interested in either or them and have never seen ‘A Bit of Fry and Laurie’ I’d thoroughly recommend it.
While they obviously have their individual talents and were well cast as Jeeves & Wooster I mostly found “A Bit of Fry & Laurie too much " Cambridge Footlights Comedy by Numbers” as if they were mostly on auto pilot. Mildly amusing but nothing more that that.
Here in America, and I think the UK too, it always seemed as if Fry sort of had the greater post-ABOF&L career - of course both have done quite well, but Stephen is a fixture on TV and radio. With House’s success, at least on this side of the pond, things have evened out a bit. So a reunion makes sense as they are both doing exceptionally well and it wouldn’t be like, “Well, Fry’s on the telly all the time, where’s Laurie been?”
Sorry, I’m going to have to agree with Rrose Selavy on this. I watched the first two [del]seasons[/del] series on DVD a year or so ago, and found it mildly amusing, occasionally rising above or sinking below that level, but with nothing that really stuck with me or made me do more than chuckle. So, not bad, but hardly the best sketch show (or best example of British comedy, or best thing Fry and/or Laurie has done) ever.
A friend who follows Hugh Laurie much more closely than I says that Peter Fry has been known to stay at his home when he’s in town, so it’s not like the two can’t stand each other now or anything.
Her idea, which I think is not bad, is to have Fry be Mycroft, not Moriarty, to Laurie’s Holmes – not necessarily a blood brother (it would be a shame to saddle him with an American accent) – but somebody with whom he has a long history and who is even better at problem-solving than him, but not as driven.
I like Frye and Laurie and I think they work well together. I also enjoy House, but somehow I think this would be a bad idea. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but I don’t think it would work very well. I suppose it’s partly because it’s too gimmicky, but there’s something else as well that I can’t identify that makes me think it’s wouldn’t work.
It’s probably just that most of their work together has been comedy of one form or another, and more specifically that their dynamic tended to be Stephen playing the Big Brain and Hugh playing the well-meaning and congenial simpleton. The chemistry that they have would obviously not be suited to House – but they are both capable actors and I think that they would have no trouble doing something substantially different together.