Stephen Fry: tried hard but could have done better

On Radio Four at 8.30 a.m. on September 26^th, Stephen Fry stepped up to plug his new BBC TV series and book, entitled Fry’s Planet Word.

Already I’m disposed to dislike it, even before he has spoken one syllable. It’s the title. Why is his name in it? Why did he call his radio show Fry’s English Delight? How come physics gets TV documentaries presented by physicists (Brian Cox), history gets historians (Lucy Worsley), medicine gets doctors (Michael Mosley),  and music gets people who are musically trained to some degree (Simon Russell Beal, Gareth Malone), while anything to do with language tends to get presenters who are famous for other stuff? *

Advertisement