I woke up with a hangover and went to bed as front page news. Not because of the hangover - it wasn't that spectacular - but because the
Stephen Fry video had gone live and his revelations had been picked up by the press. I wasn't surprised that it was news, but was a bit astonished at how quickly the story spread and that fact that the Mirror and Times had it as their lead story and the BBC news site.
As you are probably aware by now Stephen had revealed that he had attempted suicide last year. I don't think he had been planned to mention it and obviously it's amazing for the podcast that he chose to tell me about this, but more importantly this is an amazingly brave thing for him to do and an important issue to get out in the open and I know from my Twitter feed that this was a fantastic comfort to people who have been in the same position or who have to fight against depression. I am not going to add much more - I think Stephen said it all in the podcast and hope that the press will respect him as much as the audience did (though obviously they won't) and leave it at that. The audio will be up tomorrow and will be free as usual and it's well worth a listen. If these issues affect you or anyone that you know then there are people who can help. Stephen is the President of
Mind who are doing awesome work in this area and I don't think I could have more respect for anyone than I do for Fry for bringing this personal difficulty to the public's attention.
And you might worry from the coverage that Stephen was down during the podcast, which couldn't be further from the truth. He was happy and funny and the thing that got the biggest gasp of shock on the night was in fact
a revelation about the Hobbit. And Fry also gave the most thorough answer to the self-fellatio question and was pretty sharp on the ham hand/suncream armpit conundrum too. But for some reason the idiots at the BBC didn't see fit to put that in their bulletins!
Here's another funny clip and there's plenty more where that came from.
It was a joyous and emotional and very positive night and I hope nothing negative comes out of it especially for Stephen who I know has gone up even further in any normal people's estimation which is quite an impressive trick. We must cherish this precious and vulnerable man. He really is an example of what is great about England, a traditionalist in some ways, an iconoclast in others, not afraid to embrace the future, the grand-child of immigrants, non-conventional, fighting his demons with dignity and humour. He is England.
It is of course still exciting for me that this independently produced podcast is able to attract such massive names and put people at ease enough to talk about things like this. And in another sign that things are moving in ever more interesting directions today Russell Brand (who has been saying he wants to do the show for weeks) has agreed to do the show on June 17th. Tickets are flying out of the door, but you might get one
if you're quick. What revelations can I get out of him?
And the pressure is on for Mary Beard, my next guest. I will also be speaking to the producer of QI, John Lloyd on the 10th June. Do come along if you can. I don't think anyone who was in the theatre last Monday is going to forget the experience. And it makes me very proud of my audience that not one of them went to the press or (as far as I know) even tweeted about this in the last two days. You are great, great people.
