The British Academy Film Awards

This years presenter - Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry was born in 1957 and educated at an unfeasibly large number of educational establishments, most of which rapidly tired of him. At Cambridge University, he met and worked with, amongst others, Emma Thompson and Hugh Laurie, a life long friend and comedy partner.

Fry’s first play Latin! received a Scotsman fringe first award and has subsequently been performed around the country. The Cellar Tapes, the Footlights revue he wrote and performed with Thompson, Laurie and Tony Slattery, was televised by the BBC, thus beginning his hugely successful career in television.

There followed Alfresco, a comedy series for Granada (along with Laurie, Thompson, Ben Elton and Robbie Coltrane) three series of Blackadder, four series of A Bit of Fry and Laurie with Hugh Laurie (both for BBC) and four series of Jeeves and Wooster for Granada. He has also completed two series of Absolute Power with John Bird for the BBC, Bones for Fox and numerous single dramas for television, including Tom Brown’s Schoolboys and the series Kingdom for ITV. Recently he appeared in Holy Flying Circus for Talkback Thames, BBC’s pastiche The Bleak Little Shop of Stuff, as well as portraying the daft Professor Mildeye in Working Title’s The Borrowers.

Stephen Fry continues to host the BBC quiz show QI, now in its 10th series, and has also presented the documentaries Stephen Fry’s 100 Greatest Gadgets, Planet Word, Stephen Fry on Wagner, Last Chance To See, Fry In America, Manic Depression, HIV And Me and The Machine That Made Us all for the BBC.

Since making his film debut in The Good Father in 1985, Fry has continued to make regular film appearances, winning awards for performances throughout his career. He starred in Kenneth Branagh’s Peter’s Friends and achieved much critical acclaim for his role as Oscar Wilde in Wilde. In 2001, he played the detective in Robert Altman’s Gosford Park. 2003 saw Fry make his directorial debut with Bright Young Things, which he also adapted from Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies. He appeared in A Cock and Bull Story (based on the novel Tristram Shandy) in 2005 and portrayed Gordon, a non-conforming TV Presenter in V for Vendetta in the same year.
He also appeared as himself in St Trinians, playing the role of Minister Tormer in Eichmann and served as the voice of The Cheshire Cat in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. Most recently, Stephen Fry appeared as Mycroft Holmes in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes 2 and The European in Sprout Michaelmas Productions’ The Man.

As a stage actor he has performed in Alan Bennett’s Forty Years On, Michael Frayn’s Look, Look, Simon Gray’s The Common Pursuit and Cell Mates.

His work on the revived musical Me and My Girl, which enjoyed lengthy runs on Broadway and in the West End, won him a Drama Circle award and a Tony Nomination.

Fry is also a celebrated author. His work includes best-selling novels, an autobiography, as well as a book on poetry form, The Ode Less Travelled. He is well known amongst a younger generation as the reader of the audio book versions J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels.