mp3: Stephen Fry - Saturday Night Fry ep 1

Well, I thought I’d try a bit of comedy. No, not me, that would be horrendous; I looked for the first piece of comedy that turned up on my Zen this evening and resolved to put it on here, and lucky you, it’s the first episode of Saturday Night Fry.

Despite (sometimes perfectly just) accusations that are often levelled against Fry, including an almost insurmountable smugness, becoming almost exactly the type of Establishment figure he used to lampoon, being a voiceover slag of the worst water, oh, and let’s not forget, Peter’s Friends, one of the worst and self-satisfied films ever made, I can’t help it. I think he’s great. I always have, even when he lets me down by pretending he’s stupid, like he did in those Twinings tea ads.

And so it’s a pleasure to give away something still relatively rare - a not-very-well-known 6-part radio comedy he made for Radio 4 in 1988, Saturday Night Fry, with his Cambridge Footlights pals such as Emma Thompson and Hugh Laurie, and other types like Alison Steadman and Jim Broadbent. It’s quite simply one of the best things he ever did… I’m not going to review it for you as every time I try I just end up sounding like some middle-aged idiot from the Radio Times, so you just have to give it a go yourself. But remember - it’s Stephen Fry. It’s brilliant.

In about 1993, he was doing a book signing in Waterstones in Glasgow. As we were students, some friends and I didn’t have enough spare cash for a book each so we bought one and asked him to sign it five times, which he duly did. Now, one guy in particular, Ben, was a massive fan of Fry’s and was really quite in awe of him when we all gathered round the table. “To To To To To” wrote Fry in the book’s front plate. “Dermot Donald Ben Colin Colin” (there were two Colins). “Lots Lots Lots Lots Lots” “Of of of of of” “Love Love Love Love Love” “Stephen Fry”, at the bottom. Ben pipes up in a kind of joky, bit nervous voice,
“You’ll need a new pen after that!”

and thinks to himself, “Oh, that was a bit of a pathetic thing to say.”

Stephen Fry, the man he idolises, looks up and says, “Sorry, what was that? I didn’t catch what you said.”

Ben then has to repeat the lame-o line to him. He said it was the longest sentence he’s ever had to say. After Ben’s let the words slip out of his face once more, Stephen laughs almost imperceptibly. Just politely, almost. Ben’s reminded of this whenever he sees Fry’s face. I like that.

If you like it, get it here at a slightly lower sound quality.

I’m back in the saddle again, as Steve Tyler used to say back in the seventies, though he maybe can’t remember it. I’ve been in Denmark these last couple of weeks, living with the wasps on the campsites (not the Danish band Campsite), depending on my mp3 player for entertainment in the daylight and pitch black, while existing without internet, TV and typical home comforts. But we all need a break from the keyboard sometime, so it’s refreshing to unplug yourself. And it’s always nice to be completely oblivious to the usual madness going on in the world.

Denmark is of course a lovely country in which to chill out, feeling superior to the Netherlands in many respects, with actual product choice in supermarkets and loads of free space for you to turn, breath and just take in the scenery, although is let down in that its language, which seems rather simple and easy to follow on paper, is transformed into a chaotic mess when spoken. As a bonus, you get to soul search and get to seek out your inner viking, of whom the Danes are exceptionally proud.

CDs, however, are horribly over-priced, meaning I wasn’t able to come back with any Under Byen. As one of the few Danish bands I care about, it would have been nice to pick up some nice merchandise from their home soil, but helaas, while most shops did stock them (if you searched properly), the albums would have cost around €23, which is completely unreasonable in my eyes.

Still, it’s a pleasant surprise to return to the real world and see that they’ll be touring in NL in November. Here are the first three dates I’ve found.

03-11: Ekko, Utrecht
06-11: Paradiso, Amsterdam
08-11: Rotown, Rotterdam

There may well be one or two extras too, but I have no official sources to call upon right now.

I don’t have any personal mp3s to post, but here are some tracks from their official website (some of which I’ve linked to and written about in the past).

mp3: Af samme stof som stof
mp3: Den her sang handler om at få det bedste ud af det
mp3: Plantage
mp3: Hjertebarn

mp3: Michelle Shocked - The Ballad of Patch-Eye and Meg

Michelle Shocked represents to me the sheer work you had to put in sometimes, pre-pre-internet, to locate music you knew you liked but had never seen; sure, you read a review of it, or saw a poster, but trying to actually get your hands on some records was amazingly frustrating. Years ago, in 1988, in fact, I searched for the album The Texas Campfire Tapes, from which The Ballad of Patch-Eye and Meg is taken, in vain. After many months of searching, nigh on a year, I think, in fact, I eventually I found it at Probe in Liverpool, yelped in delight and shelled out my 9.99 (for the vinyl), took it home all excited, and it didn’t leave my turntable for weeks.

I loved its sound - recorded verbatim, it seemed, with trucks passing and crickets chirping. The songs were sweet and witty, her voice teetering into Minnie Mouse territory occasionally, but that just, to me, made it all the more attractive. I was 15 and this was the first time I’d heard music recorded in this way; instead of beautifully produced, arranged and polished, this was personal, intimate, seemingly just for my ears only - she even messed up endings occasionally (”..you hear girls trying to play barre chords!“), like a real person. The Ballad of Patch-Eye and Meg’s a perfect example of her great storytelling.

Buy - and I’ve just noticed from this site that she’s released a 2CD set of TCT with 23 extra tracks. God, life’s so much easier these days.