How Stephen Fry ended up hosting the Australian version of Jeopardy!

There are few, if any, inhabitants of the satellite of showbusiness whose nett has been formed wider successful the quest for originative fulfilment than Stephen Fry. Over the decades this iconic Cambridge colossus has brought his effortless charm, intellect and classical, aristocratic Englishness to conscionable astir each arena possible: writer, actor, comedian and presenter, TV, film, signifier and books, fabrication and non-fiction, comedy, drama, documentaries, sheet shows, memoirs and novels.

Stephen Fry is the big of a caller UK and Australian mentation of quiz-show Jeopardy!.Credit: Nine

Nothing, specified a polymath essays, should travel arsenic a implicit surprise, and yet his latest endeavour, hosting some the British and Australian versions of long-running American quiz amusement Jeopardy!, doesn’t look an evident fit. He spent galore years asking tricky questions connected QI, but that was successful the institution of his chap drama professionals, and a format attuned to his peculiar skills: jolly speech and storytelling. But Fry overseeing the quickfire trivia barrage of Jeopardy!? Bantering with the wide nationalist alternatively than showbiz elite? How did specified a happening travel about?

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“It’s a precise bully question,” Fry muses, “and the reply shows the disorganised authorities of my caput and ambitions, truly – that things conscionable hap successful my beingness without immoderate readying oregon immoderate consideration.” As the fable goes, Fry was having a affable meal with his American agent, and the substance of their communal emotion of Jeopardy !– and the startling (to the agent) information that Britain didn’t person the show, came up.

“Two weeks later, helium calls up,” Fry goes on, “and says, ‘Well, British TV’s precise excited astir the thought of your doing Jeopardy!’. I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘Yeah, they emotion the thought of your hosting it.’ I said, ‘But I ne'er said that.’ He said, ‘Oh, you don’t privation to bash it?’ And I thought, ‘Well springiness maine a chance, I’ll person a think.’ So I had a chat and asked my hubby what helium thought, and helium said, ‘Well, we bash similar it ...’ The much I thought astir it, the much I thought it would beryllium fun.”

The communicative demonstrates a fewer things astir Stephen Fry. Firstly, that helium is simply a earthy storyteller, aided by that celebrated dependable and a mode that simultaneously exudes oratorial assurance and affable warmth, seemingly taking immense joyousness successful the creation of conversation. Secondly, that for each his achievements, his attack to his vocation has ne'er been 1 of precise readying oregon semipermanent thinking. Could that beryllium the concealed to the infinite assortment of his backmost catalogue?

There are a batch of truly astute radical retired determination who ... are not members of thing that anyone tin sneeringly telephone ‘an elite’.

“The pompous oregon beingness manager reply mightiness beryllium that I’ve ever been fortunate capable to deliberation of myself as, if I tin enactment it this way, arsenic a verb, not a noun. I haven’t thought of myself arsenic an histrion oregon a writer, a documentarian oregon whatever, but conscionable this chap who does things. I conscionable emotion doing things.” There are immoderate things, of course, helium doesn’t do. He wouldn’t instrumentality a relation successful a philharmonic for illustration – “I would conscionable person to say, look, I can’t sing. It would beryllium embarrassing.” But by mode of an awesome Clint Eastwood content – “A man’s gotta cognize his limitations” – Fry opines that it’s by knowing what you can’t bash that you let yourself to clasp the immense possibilities of what you can. “It’s by knowing your limitations that you are wide and free. When you recognize your limitations, you realise the immense country of state that you have, due to the fact that it gives you a benignant of assurance to judge successful the things that you are not constricted to.”

The thought of Stephen Fry arsenic verb, not noun, leads this interviewer to musing that his surname is already a verb, and that possibly aboriginal dictionaries volition see a 2nd explanation alongside the modular one: “Fry, verb: to bask a vocation of wide and fulfilling diversity”.

Fry being Fry, this leads successful crook to different story, of a agelong and boozy meal successful the ’80s with John Hurt. The time after, a hungover Hurt declared, “I got fried past night”, to which Fry returned, “I got Hurt”. Conversation with Stephen Fry is similar that: each thought tends to subdivision retired into entertaining tangents, showbiz anecdotes and philosophical pondering nestling broadside by broadside with sparkling bon mots and a bully dose of endearing, ultra-British self-effacement.

It’s that peculiar Fryness that makes the British and Australian editions of Jeopardy! (the Australian mentation was changeable successful the UK, with Aussies successful the state recruited for contestants) somewhat antithetic beasts to the original. The format whitethorn bounds the erudite discursiveness of its host, but it can’t extinguish it: successful this Jeopardy! you’ll get a batch much witty asides and spontaneous outpourings from the immense font of cognition residing wrong that celebrated caput than you’ll find successful the US edition.

Stephen Fry (centre) connected the acceptable of the long-running QI.Credit: ABC

But the top plus that Fry brings to his caller relation is that which got him the occupation successful the archetypal place: he’s a fan. He adores the amusement and ever has. “I wouldn’t bash it for immoderate aged quiz. There is thing astir Jeopardy!,” helium says with the benignant of fervour 1 might’ve successful the past heard from him erstwhile speaking of Oscar Wilde oregon P.G. Wodehouse.

“It has a peculiar sauce. It’s been going since 1968, thousands of shows, and it proves thing that’s truly important astatine the moment, and that is that determination are a batch of truly astute radical retired determination who are not celebrities and not members of thing that that anyone tin sneeringly telephone ‘an elite’. And the radical who travel connected Jeopardy! and marque fortunes travel from each kinds of backgrounds. And that’s encouraging – there’s thing honorable and sincere and old-fashioned astir Jeopardy!.”

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Well, erstwhile you enactment it similar that… possibly Stephen Fry and Jeopardy! aren’t specified an unusual acceptable aft all.

Jeopardy! is connected Nine, Saturday, 7.30pm and 9Now.

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