A Bit Of Fry And Laurie
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A Bit Of Fry And Laurie was a sketch comedy starring Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, broadcast on BBC2 between January 13, 1989 and April 2, 1995.
Contents |
[edit] Series 1
[edit] Episode 1
- [Spoonbending with Mr. Nude]
- Stephen Fry: Well next week I shall be examining the claims of a man who says that in a previous existence he was Education Secretary Kenneth Baker and I shall be talking to a woman who claims she can make flowers grow just by planting seeds in soil and watering them. Until then, wait very quietly in your seats please. Goodnight.
[edit] Episode 2
- [Language Conversation]
- Hugh Laurie: : So lets talk instead about flexibility of language - erm, linguistic elasticity, if you'd like.
- Stephen Fry:: Yes, i think that I've said earlier that our language, English -
- L: As spoken by us.
- F: As we speak it, yes, certainly-, defines it. We are defined by our language, if you will.
- L: [to screen] Hello. We're talking about language.
- F: Perhaps I can illustrate my point. Let me at least try. Here is a question: (hun...)
- L: What is it?
- F: Oh! Hun...my question is this: is our language - English - capable... is English capable of sustaining demagoguery?
- L: Demagoguery?
- F: Demagoguery.
- L: And by "demagoguery" you mean...
- F: By "demagoguery" I mean demagoguery...
- L: I thought so.
- F: I mean highly charged oratory persuasive whipping-up rhetoric. Listen to me, listen to me. If Hitler had been British, would we, under similar circumstances, have been moved, charged up, fired up by his inflammatory speeches or would we simply have laughed? Is English too ironic to sustain Hitlerian styles? Would his language simply have rung false in our ears?
- L: [to screen] We are talking about things ringing false in our ears.
- F: May I compartmentalize - I hate to, but may I, may I: is our language a function of our British cynicism, tolerance, resistance to false emotion, humour and so on, or do those qualities come extrinsically - extrinsically] - from the language itself? It's a chicken and egg problem.
- L: [to screen] We're talking about chickens, we're talking about eggs.
- F: Hun...let me start a leveret here: There's language and there's speech. Erm, there's chess and there's a game of chess. Mark the difference for me. Mark it please.
- L: [to screen] We've moved on to chess.
- F: Imagine a piano keyboard, eh, 88 keys, only 88 and yet, and yet, hundreds of new melodies, new tunes, new harmonies are being composed by hundreds of different keyboards every day in Dorset alone. Our language, tiger, our language: hundreds of thousands of available words, trillions of legitimate new ideas, so that I can say the following sentence and be utterly sure that nobody has ever said it before in the history of human communication: "Hold the newsreader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers." Perfectly ordinary words, but never before put in that precise order. A unique child delivered of a unique mother.
- L: [to screen] ...
- F: And yet, oh, and yet, we, all of us, spend all our days saying to each other the same things time after weary time: "I love you", "Don't go in there", "Get out", "You have no right to say that", "Stop it, "Why should I", "That hurt", "Help", "Marjorie is dead". Hmn?. Surely, it's a thought to take out for cream tea on a rainy Sunday afternoon.
- L: So, to you, language is more than just a means of communication?
- F: Oh, of course it is, of course it is, of course it is, of course it is. Language is my mother, my father, my husband, my brother, my sister, my whore, my mistress, my check-out girl... language is a complimentary moist lemon-scented cleansing square or handy freshen-up wipette. Language is the breath of God. Language is the dew on a fresh apple, it's the soft rain of dust that falls into a shaft of morning light as you pluck from a old bookshelf a half-forgotten book of erotic memoirs. Language is the creak on a stair, it's a spluttering match held to a frosted pane, it's a half-remembered childhood birthday party, it's the warm, wet, trusting touch of a leaking nappy, the hulk of a charred Panzer, the underside of a granite boulder, the first downy growth on the upper lip of a Mediterranean girl. It's cobwebs long since overrun by an old Wellington boot.
- L: [to screen] Night-night.
[edit] Episode 3
- [Gordon & Stuart]
- Hugh Laurie: Exactly. Waiter, this wine has resinated in the bottle.
- [Costume Design]
- Hugh Laurie: Can I just interrupt you here?
- Stephen Fry: Certainly, Peter.
- Hugh Laurie: Thanks.
- Stephen Fry: Pleasure.
[edit] Episode 4
- [Prize Poem]
- Stephen Fry: I can't pretend to be much of a judge of poetry, I'm an English teacher, not a homosexual.
[edit] Episode 5
- [Estate Agents]
- Stephen Fry: If you try and kill them, you're put in prison: if you try and talk to them, you vomit. There's only one thing worse than an estate agent but at least that can be safely lanced, drained and surgically dressed. Estate agents. Love them or loathe them, you'd be mad not to loathe them.
[edit] Episode 6
- [Cocoa]
- Stephen Fry: [voiceover] Good old Berent's cocoa. Always there. Original or New Berent's, specially prepared for the mature citizens in your life, with nature's added store of powerful barbiturates and heroin.
[edit] Series 2
[edit] Episode 1
- [Dammit!]
- Hugh Laurie: A good wife, or a good business partner?
- Stephen Fry: Is there a difference, Peter?
- Hugh Laurie: I hope so, John.
[edit] Episode 2
- [Vox Pop]
- Hugh Laurie: [with an electronic organiser] Ask me anything, a telephone number, what time it is in Adelaide. Tell you what, I can tell you exactly what I'll be doing on the third of August 1997, say. Hang on... [presses a few buttons]. Nothing. See, it says. Nothing.
[edit] Episode 3
- [Over To You]
- Presenter: Did your children see the ... ?
- Hugh Laurie: No they didn't. They didn't see it. But only thanks to the purest good fortune that they don't happen to have been born yet, otherwise I dread to think what damage may have been caused. It was simply disgusting.
[edit] Episode 4
- [Dinner With Digby]
- Hugh Laurie: Our Venice is being taken away from us. It's crawling with Germans.
- Leslie: And Italians.
[edit] Episode 5
- [Amputated Genitals]
- Stephen Fry: I appreciate that you're trying to help here, but I also happen to use my genitals for, you know, getting rid of my urine.
- Hugh Laurie: Oh don't worry, that's the beauty of the system. When people see you wearing a combat jacket and driving round in a white van with Killer, the piss will be taken out of you constantly.
- [Bomb in a Restaurant]
- Hugh Laurie: [nervously] Good evening. Table for bomb, please.
[edit] Episode 6
- [Vox Pop]
- Stephen Fry: Well, I was born Mary Patterson, but then I married and naturally took my husband's name, so now I'm Neil Patterson.
[edit] Series 3
[edit] Episode 1
- Stephen: Twenty-five years ago the doctors told your mother and me that it would be impossible for us ever to have children.
- Hugh: Oh, why not?
- Stephen: I can't remember the exact reason; it was something to do with penises I think.
- Hugh Laurie: Yes, I drive a Vauxhall Nova Splash. Uh, it's a limited edition. I think they only made one and a half million of them.
[edit] Episode 2
- Hugh Laurie: I've always been a Daily Mail reader. I prefer it to a newspaper.
- Hugh Laurie: [Walking away] No, I can't stop, I'm afraid. My wife is being towed away.
[edit] Episode 3
- Stephen Fry: How may we serve?
- Hugh Laurie: Well, I was after a pair of shoes.
- Stephen Fry: Very well. I shall serve them first.
- Stephen Fry: Ah. I fancy I detect a wrinkle of concern on your otherwise smooth and toboggonable brow. Yes, your intimations are right. Business is not what it was. It is not even what it is. It may not even be what it will be. We shall see. If it... Mr Dalliard, I've started to talk drivel now!
[edit] Series 4
[edit] Episode 3
- [Barman]
- Hugh Laurie: You ever been trapped in a loveless marriage with a woman you despise?
- Stephen Fry: Ooh, not since I was nine!
- Hugh Laurie: She takes no interest in my friends, you know. She laughs at my…
- Stephen Fry: Peanuts?
- Hugh Laurie: Hobbies. She doesn't even value my…
- Stephen Fry: Crinkle-cut cheesy Wotsits?
- Hugh Laurie: Career.
- Hugh Laurie: Alright, so other men have got larger…
- Stephen Fry: Plums?
- Hugh Laurie: Salaries. And better prospects. And other men can boast a healthier-looking…
- Stephen Fry: Stool?
- Hugh Laurie: Lifestyle.
- Hugh Laurie: I've got two sweet, rosey…
- Stephen Fry: Nibbles?
- Hugh Laurie: Children.
- Hugh Laurie: I mean, frankly she's…
- Stephen Fry: [points] Plain and prawn-flavoured.
- Hugh Laurie: She's not as young as she used to be.
- Hugh Laurie: I don't know why I bother with women. I'd be better off being a…
- Stephen Fry: Fruit?
- Hugh Laurie: Monk, or a hermit, or something. At least if I was a…
- Stephen Fry: Fag?
- Hugh Laurie: At least if I was a monk, you know, I wouldn't have to put up with women. You know, women going on and on, who can talk the hind leg off a…
- Stephen Fry: Camel?
- Hugh Laurie: Donkey. Trouble is, I couldn't live without women. You know, in a monastery the best you can hope for is a bit of…
- Stephen Fry: Chocolate HobNob?
- Hugh Laurie: Peace and spirituality. Let's face it; we haven't slept together for years. You know, the best I can hope for is a bit of…
- Stephen Fry: Savoury finger?
- Hugh Laurie: A bit of a cuddle at Christmas. And, naturally, she won't let me give her so much as a…
- Stephen Fry: [points offstage] Good juicy tongue in the back passage.
- Hugh Laurie: Just a peck on the cheek.
- Hugh Laurie: The trouble with that woman is that she's just a…
- Stephen Fry: Rather disgusting-looking tart that should've been disposed of ages ago?
- Hugh Laurie: I tell you what it is: she's a complainer, that's what she is.
[edit] Episode 7
- [Religianto]
- We worship you, O God or Gods,
- Whoever you may be.
- We realise that you are perfect
- Supernaturally.
- We thank you for the birds and bees,
- For creatures live or dead,
- But if you actually don’t exist,
- Then ignore what we’ve just said.
- A-
