Stephen Fry’s Radio 1 history started with trouble
The archive week continued with Stephen Fry, who surprised Scott by revealing that his first appearance on Radio 1 had been around 1982 during the Falklands War.
Stephen had performed a parody of a television war reporter and was taken off because it was considered inappropriate.
That prompted the entertaining possibility that somewhere inside the BBC there might still be an ancient piece of paper saying Stephen Fry was banned from Radio 1 and nobody had remembered to rescind it.
Ten BAFTAs in, spontaneity still mattered
Stephen was preparing to host the film BAFTAs for the tenth time.
Scott asked how much could really be prepared for an awards show in which weather, winners and speeches could all change the atmosphere.
Stephen said preparation mattered, but so did being able to react to whatever happened. The conversation touched on the peculiarities of red carpets, live ceremonies and the need to make something coherent out of moments that could not be predicted beforehand.
Fry and Laurie successfully planted a new word
One of the best stories involved a microphone windshield.
During voiceover sessions in the 1980s, Stephen and Hugh Laurie decided the little foam cover on a microphone needed a better name. They invented “spuffle”.
They then deliberately started asking studio engineers for a spuffle as though the word already existed.
At first the engineers simply appeared to understand what they meant. The real victory came a couple of years later in a different studio when somebody else used the word without prompting.
Stephen and Hugh realised their made-up term had escaped into the world.
Scott immediately decided he wanted to start using it too.
Stephen Fry really, really hated dancing
Scott had recently been doing *Strictly Come Dancing* and its tour, which led directly to one subject on which Stephen had unusually strong feelings.
Dancing, he said, was a meaningless public exhibition of physical thrashing. He had no envy at all for people who could do it and described the ability less as an accomplishment than an affliction.
Scott tried to change his mind by describing the spectacle of himself dressed as a crab in a huge arena.
It did not help.
Stephen had been approached about *Strictly* and had no intention of doing it, despite being willing to try things such as bungee jumping, paragliding and zip wires.
He would not Google the pub-quiz answer either
Scott and Chris ran Stephen through a collection of everyday habits.
He did not enjoy watching himself on television. He could live with a broken phone screen. Hairdresser small talk was not something he particularly craved.
He had Twitter notifications switched off, despite being one of the platform’s most famous early adopters, and admitted he could be bothered enough by a tiny punctuation or spelling error to correct it even if doing so meant losing the retweets attached to the original post.
And if he did not know the answer in a pub quiz, he would not secretly Google it.
That, at least, won the approval of a show running a feature called Don’t Look It Up.
Norwich created an unlikely Taylor Swift plan
Stephen’s connection to Norwich City eventually took the conversation to Radio 1’s upcoming Big Weekend in Norwich.
Scott and Chris played Delia Smith’s famous rallying cry and asked Stephen to imagine delivering a similar motivational speech.
Then they spotted the bigger opportunity: Taylor Swift was playing the event.
Stephen had met Taylor on *The Jonathan Ross Show* and remembered her as charming. He also surprised her with his knowledge of country singers including Carrie Underwood and Gretchen Wilson.
Scott and Chris decided Stephen should appear on stage with Taylor in Norwich, perhaps even for a rap.
Stephen did not exactly sign a contract, but he was amused enough not to close the idea down immediately.
For an archive interview that had started with a forgotten 1982 Radio 1 controversy, ending on the possibility of Stephen Fry joining Taylor Swift on stage felt entirely appropriate.
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