Stephen Fry in America - Delightful!

Show: Stephen Fry in America

My Rating: 4 stars

Stephen Fry is such a delight!  I’ve loved watching all his crazy comedy shows in the past—a little Jeeves and Wooster, A Bit of Fry and Laurie, and the more recent Kingdom.  Those shows are pretty old now, but the humor still holds up.  So, I’ll watch just about anything he’s involved in.  When I learned about this fun, little show, there was no question about whether or not I was going to watch it.  The idea seems pretty straightforward, but I can’t actually remember anyone doing it as adorably as Fry.  Stephen Fry, a British man through and through, decides to make a tour of all fifty of the United States, one by one, in one of those lovely, black, English taxicabs.  But, he doesn’t hit up all the most obvious tourist destinations in each state.  Fry tries to set his show apart a little bit from all the other travel shows by trying to visit some of the quirkier, more unique sites.  He is essentially attempting to discover the essence of America.  I have to say that even I learned a few new things about the United States, right along with him.

The material is presented in a series of TV-length episodes.  It’s pretty easy to get your hands on them these days because they’re now available for streaming through Netflix (although, when I watched the show, I still had to rent the individual disks).  And, the show runs at a pretty steady clip.  There are only six episodes, so obviously Stephen is getting through a number of different states in each fifty-nine minute episode.  This pace is ok for some of his least memorable stops along the way.  For example, the visit to the Mason-Dixon Line was a bit of a snoozer.  But, when Fry visits some of the more interesting locations, I did wish he’d spend a little more time with them.  Oh well.  I guess he realized that most viewers don’t have much patience for long, rambling pieces after a long, hard day at work.  So, I guess the decision to move through the states at a pretty quick pace was for the best.  There are a lot of them.  But Stephen does spend enough time in each state to be sufficiently baffled by the variety of, and enthusiasm dedicated to American culture.  He gets to pick at banjoes, work a commercial lobster boat, attend an insanely wild Alabama football game, align his chakras with crystals in Arizona . . . .  The list goes on, and Stephen Fry’s delicate British sensibilities are ruffled at every turn.  Of course, he’s delighted by it all as well.  It’s pretty charming.

You should definitely check out this show.  And, this one has a much broader appeal than the stuff I usually recommend.  I admit, I sometimes try to push some pretty questionable material on my dear readers.  But, this show really is appropriate for just about all audiences.  And, when Mr. Fry does decide to show viewers something a little shocking (North Carolina, I’m looking at you), he makes a point of warning viewers well in advance.