Comic Songs (47)

Fry and Laurie‘ are an English comedy double act, mostly active in the 1980s and 1990s. The duo consisted of Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, who met in 1980 through mutual friend Emma Thompson whilst all three attended the University of Cambridge. They initially gained prominence in a television sketch comedy, A Bit of Fry & Laurie (1987, 1989–1995), and have collaborated on numerous other projects including, most notably, the television series Jeeves and Wooster (1990–1993) in which they portrayed P.G. Wodehouse’s literary characters Jeeves (Fry) and Wooster (Laurie).

As in The Two Ronnies, elaborate wordplay and innuendo were staples of its material. It frequently broke the fourth wall; characters would revert into their real-life actors mid-sketch, or the camera would often pan off set into the studio. In addition, the show was punctuated with non sequitur vox pops in a similar style to those of Monty Python’s Flying Circus, often making irrelevant statements, heavily based on wordplay. Laurie was also seen playing piano and a wide variety of other instruments and singing comical numbers.

Laurie’s musical talents featured on the show in the form of plot points in a sketch and satirical songs. The first such song, “Mystery”, parodies a mournful love song from a lounge singer (Laurie mimics the vocal mannerisims of Sammy Davis Jr.) and presents the obstacles to a relationship between the singer and the object of affection, which become more outlandish every verse: she lives in a different country, would probably have a problem with the singer’s job (“with the Thames Water Authority”), has never actually met and may indeed “take a violent dislike” to the singer, and has been dead since 1973 (“fifteen years come next Jan-uary”).

Since the conclusion of A Bit of Fry and Laurie, both have gone on to solo careers in acting, writing and other roles. They reunited for a retrospective show in 2010 titled Fry and Laurie Reunited. In May 2012, Fry announced on Twitter that he and Laurie were working together on a new project. Various press sources have since announced that it is to be an adaptation of The Canterville Ghost (1887) by Oscar Wilde and had been scheduled for release over Christmas 2014, and this animated film is reported by IMDb to be in post production as of January 2022, with October 2022 given as its release date.

Fry and Laurie have remained close friends throughout their careers. Laurie frequently thanks Fry when accepting awards, including at the 2007 Golden Globes when he referred to his former comedy partner, in the old A Bit of Fry and Laurie style, as “…m’colleague Stephen Fry”.

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