Watch:
Availability:
Sorry, this programme is not available to watch again. (why?)
Last broadcast on Mon, 12 Jan 2009, 00:35 on BBC Four (see all broadcasts).
Synopsis
Stephen Fry was very nearly an American. Just before Stephen was born, his father was offered a job at Princeton University but turned it down. As a result, Stephen was born in NW3 rather than in NJ, New Jersey. In this six-part series he travels, mostly in a London cab, through all 50 states of the country that he could have nearly called home and which has always fascinated him.
Here, Stephen Fry explores what it is that makes the south so distinctive. He joins coal miners deep underground in West Virginia, meets a young man with the state of Kentucky tattooed on his butt, enjoys a delirious session of bluegrass music-making in Tennessee, has an encounter with a bear in the Smokey Mountains, ascends in a balloon above North Carolina, learns the language of slaves in South Carolina, is invited into a Georgian family's Old Plantation house to join their Thanksgiving celebrations (and has an unfortunate encounter with a horse), fails as a dancing escort in Florida and is moved by two very different events in Alabama: a parole board's deliberations and the extraordinary hoopla of a college ball game, complete with air-force jets.

Clip: Horse breeding
Stephen Fry meets a horse breeder in Kentucky.
Credits
- Presenter
- Stephen Fry
Broadcasts
-
Sun 19 Oct 200821:00
-
Sat 25 Oct 200819:10
-
Thu 27 Nov 200801:30
-
Mon 1 Dec 200800:35
-
Sun 11 Jan 200919:00
-
Mon 12 Jan 200900:35