Stephen Fry’s New Show to be Driven by His Twitter Fans

Image Credit flickr User Adam NFK Smith

Stephen Fry has a plan.  Kinda. The British Actor, Writer, Lord of Dance, Prince of Swimwear & Blogger (that's his own description) is planning a series of gigs in the UK that are unscripted but will be driven by suggestions from his Twitter followers.  Now, that might perhaps be a little foolhardy, even if British entertainers (particularly comedians) are jumping on the Twitter bandwagon with as much gay abandon as they can muster.

However, taking a quick look at Mr Fry's Twitter page this morning, he has 1,681,596 followers - and the number seems to increase at every reload of the page.  So, perhaps he is on to something here. 

One might expect the famously articulate raconteur to be able to swing a few hours at the Albert Hall without any help whatsoever, but he will be reliant on his twitter fans to feed him subject topics for his monologue (dramatic, or otherwise) throughout the show.

He has, to be honest, done this before.  In July he was in Australia (the Opera House, no less - and we just thought they only did fat ladies and Wagner there).  A seasoned operophile, you can only imagine Fry's frisson of pleasure when he walked out on to the stage.  With the help of his twitter fans he went down a complete storm - and he didn't even have to sing anything (even though it would have been fun to hear him attempt Au fond du temple saint from the Pearl Fishers with him taking the role of Nadir and his twitter community joining forces to tweet the fine baritone of Zurga).

(Note to Mr Fry if he ever reads this: sorry about the pics - they do not reflect your new slimline form.  However, we only use copyright free pics on Kuriositas and these were the best we could find!).

He followed on - at the insistence of his Australian fans - to do another two shows based on the same premise in Melbourne.  Each show ran over time - with his Twitter fans suggesting subjects like Oscar Wilde (who he played in the 1991 film Wilde - and who can forget him in that pink suit?), PG Wodehouse and his writing career it was little wonder that he didn't simply sling a hammock and take up residence.

So, starting on 20 September, Fry will be exhorting his twitter followers to provide him with immediate suggestions of subjects upon which he can wax lyrical.  He has promised that anything goes - from whimsy (which he does well) to more serious subjects like the bipolar disorder with which he lives.

So, let's take a quick dip in to Stephen Fry's twitter stream this morning and see what he is up to - perhaps in way of a preview of what we might expect at the Albert Hall in September.  Does he have sufficient fodder to feed his fantabulous fulminations and his flippantly frivolous philosophising?  Judging by his own stream - quite probably!

Something exciting is happening to (or around, upon, because of or despite) Mr Fry today, about which he is being secretive.  Reminds me of the old joke about how to keep an idiot in suspense.  No doubt we will return in our electronic hordes to see what happened - perhaps on the offchance it will be salacious (but knowing in our hearts that it won't be).

His second most recent tweet is about Twitter itself - or rather the parody below.  Perhaps Twitter will eat itself, like pop did a few decades ago. It has to be said that this is very funny - inspired almost.



The next tweet gently berates an Independent journalist for disrespecting his twitter followers by casting a doubt or two on their ability to feed him interesting subjects when it comes to the forthcoming shows (re what I said about twitter eating itself!).

Next he celebrates the Five Books website - which he states is truly wonderful.  Known to be occasional full of hyperbolics, Fry is quite right on this score.  Each day an eminent writer, thinker, commentator, politician, academic chooses five books on their specialist subject. It really is a cool website.

Then he welcomes Russell Tovey (left), the British actor who has succeeded in making jug ears sexy - in to the twitter fold - everyone succumbs in the end, he says - as if Twitter is some sort of medieval plague (it has been called worse, let's face it).

Finally - and we could go on forever here -  he bemoans the fact that he missed the meteor shower last night.  Well, I live on the highest hill in South East London, Mr Fry - and I craned my neck for half an hour last night in the expectation of seeing something dazzling only to wake up blind in the morning and be killed by a triffid.  I saw nothing but my neck is killing me.

So, yes.  Here at Kuriositas, we think it is quite likely this new show of his will have no shortage of material on the night! (Yes, why didn't we just say that?)


Additional Image Credits
Russel Tovey
Stephen Fry larger than he is now - honest
Stephen Fry pontificating - Flickr User vpjayant