''Saturday Night Fry'' is a six-part comedy series on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...

that was first broadcast between 30 April and 4 June 1988. Episode One had previously been broadcast as a pilot on 19 December 1987, under the title ''Fry on Saturday''. A different show of the same name aired on BBC Radio 4 in 1998, again hosted by Fry. This was a series of serious 45-minute debates interspersed with the occasional sketches and pieces of music.

Format

Hosted by

Stephen Fry Stephen John Fry (born 24 August 1957) is an English actor, broadcaster, comedian, director and writer. He first came to prominence in the 1980s as one half of the comic double act Fry and Laurie, alongside Hugh Laurie, with the two starring ...

—accompanied each week by a selection of guests including Jim Broadbent,

Emma Thompson Dame Emma Thompson (born 15 April 1959) is a British actress. Regarded as one of the best actresses of her generation, she has received numerous accolades throughout her four-decade-long career, including two Academy Awards, two British A ...

Phyllida Law Phyllida Ann Law (born 8 May 1932) is a British actress, known for her numerous roles in film and television. Early life Law was born in Glasgow, the daughter of Meg "Mego" and William Law, a journalist. Prior to the Second World War, her fath ...

Robert Bathurst Robert Guy Bathurst (born 22 February 1957) is an English actor. Bathurst was born in The Gold Coast (now Ghana) in 1957, where his father was working as a management consultant. In 1959 his family moved to Ballybrack, Dublin, Ireland and Bath ...

Julia Hills Julia Hills (born 3 April 1957) is an English actress, known for portraying the role of Rona in all eight series of the BBC sitcom ''2point4 Children''. She also portrayed various roles in Channel 4's first late night satirical sketch show ''Who ...

Alison Steadman Alison Steadman (born 26 August 1946) is an English actress. She received the 1991 National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Actress for the Mike Leigh film '' Life Is Sweet'' and the 1993 Olivier Award for Best Actress for her role as Ma ...

and long-time collaborator

Hugh Laurie James Hugh Calum Laurie (; born 11 June 1959) is an English actor, comedian, writer, and musician. He first gained recognition for his work as one half of the comedy double act Fry and Laurie with Stephen Fry. The two men acted together in a ...

—the show took the form of a round table discussion and sketches which veered tangentially from the sublime to the ridiculous. Parodies of television and radio formats were common ('Fat Man on a Bicycle', and so on). Snippets of

classical music Classical music generally refers to the art music of the Western world, considered to be distinct from Western folk music or popular music traditions. It is sometimes distinguished as Western classical music, as the term "classical music" also ...

were used to mark breaks between items, usually succeeded by Fry's voice saying, "And as the strains of the ame of piecefade away, we turn to..." On one occasion, in line with a running joke throughout the episode, the last of these in the show was said as " And as the strains of Julia being slapped fades away..." Certain editions were constructed in complex knots: one edition saw the cast rearranging the script as a

practical joke A practical joke, or prank, is a mischievous trick played on someone, generally causing the victim to experience embarrassment, perplexity, confusion, or discomfort.Marsh, Moira. 2015. ''Practically Joking''. Logan: Utah State University Press. ...

whilst Fry has gone to the toilet, ending up in him reading the part where they do that and so finding them red-handed, whilst the first edition fell in and out of dream sequences caused by a devilish potion. Although slightly different in format the series could be seen as a direct precursor to ''

A Bit of Fry and Laurie ''A Bit of Fry & Laurie'' is a British sketch comedy television series written by and starring former Cambridge Footlights members Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie, broadcast on both BBC1 and BBC2 between 1989 and 1995. It ran for four series and t ...

'', the 1989 television series (piloted in 1987), which employed a very similar style of humour and wordplay: it included the fictional language "Strom", and the phrase "Mr. Music, will you play?". The signature tune opening each episode was "

Saturday Night Fish Fry "Saturday Night Fish Fry" is a jump blues song written by Louis Jordan and Ellis Lawrence Walsh, best known through the version recorded by Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five. The recording is considered to be one of the "excellent and commercially ...

" by

Louis Jordan Louis Thomas Jordan (July 8, 1908 – February 4, 1975) was an American saxophonist, multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and bandleader who was popular from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as " the King of the Jukebox", he earned his high ...

. This would always be preceded by a rather convoluted introduction from Fry.

Release

In 2009, the series was released on a triple compact disc set by

BBC Audio AudioGO (formerly BBC Audiobooks) was a publisher of audiobooks and a range of spoken word and large-print titles. It was majority owned by AudioGO Ltd, and minority owned by BBC Worldwide. It was formed in 2010, when AudioGO purchased a majori ...

in June and reaired the following month on

BBC Radio 7 BBC Radio 4 Extra (formerly BBC Radio 7) is a British Digital radio in the United Kingdom, digital radio broadcasting, radio station from the BBC, broadcasting archived repeats of comedy, drama and documentary programmes nationally, 24 hours a ...

References

External links

Some of the Corpses Are Amusing
— A comprehensive article. BBC Radio comedy programmes 1988 radio programme debuts {{BBC-radio-stub