From the archive (season 2): Stephen Fry

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:07Hello friends and buckle up Because we have a little treat for you at the end of what has been an absolutely banging season of guests An autumn mini-series of five of my old favourites So, as autumn turns to winter, snuggle up, settle in and wallow in this little selection of the most cocklewarming interviews. First up, it is the one and only, the national treasure, Stephen Fry, who graced Cassident to share his pearls of wisdom. He was an absolute treat of a guest. Don't tell me I don't spoil you.

0:56Hello people, welcome back to season two of Comfort Eating. This time we are actually in my house. We were meant to do that last season. The builders had other plans. I'm here now. I'm not going to lie, I am a bag of nerves this morning, which I am trying to soothe with a large glass of banana Nesquik and some strawberry Pop-Tarts. Because guess who is coming round? it's only Stephen Fry. I feel very exposed. He's going to see how I live. I think he seems like a nice man, he won't judge. I can't really list all the things that you might know Stephen from. He's an actor, comedian, a writer, an audiobook narrator, he's a panel show host, he's written novels, non-fiction and three, three volumes of autobiography.

1:47He's lived a pretty full life, to say the least and I am excited and more than a little bit daunted to be sharing my dining table and a mystery snack with him oh there's my pop tarts season two let's do this delicious

2:14Stephen Fry, welcome to Comfort Eating. Thank you for asking me. You've caused several arguments already between me and my partner because we've just moved back into this house and I wanted it to be perfect before you arrived because I have a sense that you're a man that gets things done and you wouldn't have... See the paintings that are just sitting around? See these pieces of art that haven't been... Where do you get a man that is a good man, but I'm talking about my partner here, but will also hammer a nail in a wall? I am not such a man either, Grace, and I promise you that I am very familiar with piled up pictures that need a place on the wall.

2:54In fact, I remember once inviting people round for kind of tea one Sunday afternoon and basically saying the price of your cup of tea is everyone take a picture and put it up somewhere. I don't care where, just for heaven's sake, get them up on the walls. Did that work? It does, actually. And once they're up on the walls, you realise that having to think about where they go is almost irrelevant. Just shove them up. Do you want to put a picture up before you go? Would it be presumptuous to give you an orbital sander and see if you could do a bit of DIY before you left? I would not advise it. I'm not good with things like that.

3:32Okay, as you know, this is the bit of the podcast where my guest presents me with the comfort snack that they wouldn't necessarily eat in front of people normally. They do it privately and then we get to share it. Stephen Fry, what have you got for me? Well, I've brought along, you can hear, a clatter of plates, something which really should be the basis of all comfort food and that's firstly toast, in this case sourdough toasted to give it a sort of crack and, you know, give some work to the jaws. OK. And here you can see some quartered cherry tomatoes. OK. I was just... Now, you probably think this is sardines.

4:18I would have thought it was sardines. What have you got? It's actually skippers. Your face! Your face! Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Skippers, OK. Brizzling is another word for them. I think they come in northern waters, like all the best seafood is in cold water, as I'm sure you'd agree. So is a skipper... It's like a baby sardine. It's like a tiny little silvery fish. It's smaller than a sardine. My cats are going wild somewhere already in the house. Oh, gosh, you've got cats here, of course. Well, we may be generous to them. You are the best guest ever, they're saying. And I'm mushing them up with the tomatoes in a very basic sort of way.

4:56Something's very medieval about this. No, there's something very Viking about this. There kind of is, isn't there? But you needn't feel guilty about it because it's an oily fish. And as you know, doctors will tell you that oily fish is an essential part of one's diet for omega-3s and all kinds of goodness. So, Grace, you're going to have to, if you can, close your eyes tight and pretend to enjoy it. But I think you will. Tell me when you eat this. I would eat it in front of the television, but importantly, as I've discovered through bitter trial and error, with a plate under because the oil can drip down.

5:39Isn't that simple and delicious? This is the first time I've ever eaten Skipper's. I love how you're so practised in this. You can literally just, like I said, distend your jawline. Just put the whole lot in. You see, that's a much more delicate fish than I thought it was going to be. Mmm, it is. How long have you been eating this for? Mmm, since I was a boy. I grew up in rural Norfolk. But actually, it was a very old-fashioned sort of childhood. You know, the fish man would come in a horse and cart. There was a delicatessen in Norwich called Lambert's who sold skippers, and I think my mother persuaded, because she liked them too, and persuaded the local grocer who would deliver to stock them.

6:27There's a wonderful early 19th century divine, as they used to be called, i.e. churchman, called Sidney Smith, who was a very famous wit. And he once wrote in a letter to a friend when he got translated from one parish to another. He was sent by his bishop to a parish in Yorkshire, I think. And he says in the letter, you ask what sort of a place this village is. I think I can best reply by saying we are simply miles from the nearest lemon. Isn't that good? And I grew up miles from the nearest lemon. And the idea of being within 100 miles of an avocado or something, let alone the sort of ramen and kimchi and things that people eat now.

7:14I mean, we'd never heard of such things and we couldn't possibly imagine ourselves eating them.

7:27As you've said, you grew up in rural Norfolk in the 60s, and you've described your upbringing as somewhat old-fashioned. So how much was that reflected in the food you were eating? And I certainly don't want to give the impression that it was Downton Abbey, but we did have a wonderful woman who cooked, Mrs Riseborough, who was just a perfect old-fashioned English cook. You know, she made treacle tarts and apple pies and things like that and shepherd's pies alternating and things like that. And it also had that old-fashioned English thing of being regular. If it was Wednesday, then it was treacle tart.

8:05And she would alternate because my brother liked it with cornflakes on the top or possibly frosties, you know. And I liked it more with a sort of breadcrummy, like a crumble top. And so every other Wednesday it wouldn't suit me. But, you know, rolling pastry and things like that. And she taught me how to, well, at least I've tried to reproduce, but I've forgotten, how to make a rose to go in the centre of an apple pie. You put squares of pastry and then cut them in the knife and open the rose petals and it sort of sits in the middle there. Was she there when you woke up to make breakfast? She didn't make breakfast, no.

8:42She did come very early and her sister-in-law came as well who'd scrub the floors, Mrs. Wright. So there's Mrs. Risborough and Mrs. Wright. And I think for breakfast, basically I like most children of my generation just obsessed with cereal. You could just eat it out of the box and pour it. I liked sugar puffs enormously. And goodness knows they must have forced me into an addiction for sugar, which lasted for many years. Also Farley's Rusks with very cold milk on broken up. It was fantastic. That taste of Farley's Rusk. I can taste it. I haven't eaten those things for 46 years. I can taste it in my head.

9:23Can you? Oh, absolutely. What even were they? I don't know. It was a sort of malty-ish, slightly malty-ish kind of quality. In a disc? Yeah, that's right. And then you could eat them. Yeah, as a biscuit, as a Rusk. Or you could put milk. That's why I liked the milk. And you'd kind of be left with them. They were the kind of thing that they pacified you. your parents would kind of give you them and walk off to just shut you up. It sounds idyllic to me. Yes. Like idyllic. I mean, so this idea of beautiful lawns and somebody coming in to make treacle tart. Yes. And actually the thing that when I look back is the oddest is we had gardeners.

10:03I mean, more than one gardener. And I wouldn't want to give the impression my parents were wildly rich or anything, but they did need that. It was a big vegetable garden. There were asparagus beds and there were peas and beans and black currants and all those sort of things, rhubarb and lots of fruit and vegetables. And the gardeners would come to the back door presenting the day's catch, as it were, from their vegetable beds and plots. And Mrs. Rydberg would say, I want those, get me some potatoes. Excuse me. We have to leave that in, I think. Definitely a man enjoying his skippers so much. And a little breathy wind of skipper coming your way.

10:41Thankfully, they are a delicate fish. They are. What I find interesting is that until the age of seven, and then you go to boarding school. Now, I know many people that went to boarding school, and that early, they never talk about food being a wonderful thing. And it wasn't. I mean, schoolchildren in all kinds of schools love to make up revolting names for the school food, you know. Baby's legs are for some sort of weird roly-poly thing. Frogs spawn for semolina. Semolina tapioca, which I actually love. Oh, you lucky thing. I love stodgy, pale, wobbly puddings. I like them with a... Having turned into one myself, I'm delighted to hear it.

11:31But, you know, with a skin on it. Oh, that's what makes me vomit. I mean, literally, I keck, I retch. Was there anything you enjoyed at boarding school? The tuck shop. The tuck shop, basically, was the one. Tell me about the tuck shop. Is this, like, I see it as a kiosk down a corridor. It was the end of a corridor, indeed, with a sort of serving hatch that was locked all the time. And the school, again, this is going to sound so weird, the school had a butler called Mr Dealey. and his son ran the tuck shop so he had the key. So we all sucked up to Colin Dealey and said, oh, Colin, Colin. And what's so interesting when you look at the sweet one loved is they were preparing one for further addictions.

12:19They were all sugar but a lot of them were things like Spanish galleon which was a pretend rolling tobacco. It was shreds of coconut, brown dusted coconut and all wrapped up just like a pack of Golden Virginia rolling tobacco or something or a drum. Yes, so grown up. And you could buy candy cigarettes with little red dots at the end that made it look as if they were light. And they came in a packet that looked like a Chesterfield or a camel packet. And there were licorice pipes. And that's one addiction that was basically, it was being reinforced inside you as tobacco. Let's disguise this as something manly and grown up that you will love when you're a little bit older.

13:00smoking and then also there's a little sherbet fountains where you've got a straw which is made of licorice to suck up this white powder so what does that prepare one for much later in life we didn't think it at the time because I had no idea what cocaine would be or anything but it is quite interesting that all these and most importantly is they were forbidden that's to say there were very small hours that the tuck shop was open boarding school sounds to me for what little I know of it, it sounds like it was turbulent. Yes. I mean, prepubescent is fine. You're just a sort of little, you know, run around and you're friends and gangs and things like that.

13:40And sweets are probably the biggest thing in your life. But once the most dangerous drug in the world is given to one by oneself, testosterone. And it just, I mean, that's why I think I went so completely crazy at school. and also I wasn't very inspired by the academic side of things. I had the fortune stroke misfortune, really the absolute definition of a blessing and a curse, of a terrific memory and an ability to grasp ideas quite quickly and I could BS for my country in terms of essays. I kind of knew what they wanted to hear. So were you winging it and getting away with it? Yes, in terms of, yeah, I did all my O-levels when I was 14.

14:25Before I was 14, in fact. But this sounds like you're a perfect pupil, in a sense. You know, you're incredibly smart. You don't have to revise. And your biggest vice at this point is the tuck shop. And then what happens? How does it manifest itself? Love happens where I just lost all interest in even pleasing school teachers. I just thought it was all a waste of time. Because of love, though. Because of your hormones. Yeah. But was there anybody to lust after at your school? There was. I wouldn't say the boy's name, but he was so beautiful. And I've never associated beauty in a male or female with such an extraordinary feeling inside.

15:04So I'm sure many listeners would have had a similar experience in some sort of lyrical teenage love where the object of your love, you have to find out what their timetable is and where they usually walk so that you can accidentally bump into them and see where they're going. and you feel that you do bump into the more than coincidence, you know, that actually nature and the cosmos are aligning you because it was meant to be. It's a sign. Yeah, exactly. When your mother starts to get phone calls and letters home, what is your key thing that you're being pulled up on? How are you naughty? Oh, I stole.

15:40I stole from shops and from everywhere. And mad things, not even things I needed. So did you steal sweets? I did when I could, yeah. handfuls of those in the pocket and screwdrivers and hammers from an iron monger store just things like that the problem was which I didn't know and which interestingly my parents suspected as did my house master it's a wonderful thing to be able to say house master because in the old days I would describe the time I got expelled when my house master gave me permission to go to London and people go, what's a housemaster? And they need to explain. But fortunately, J.K.

16:20Rowling has done all the work. So everybody knows that a housemaster is like, you know, Minerva McGonagall is the housemistress of... Yes. Do you want me to be very honest? You have been the third wheel in my relationship with my partner for the last three and a half years because he cannot sleep without Harry Potter playing. Now, I don't want to embarrass you. And yet. Enchanting. And yet it is enchanting, but he literally cannot sleep. So it does mean that some nights when we're together in bed, doing what people do in bed, he then rolls over and I hear your voice say, Harry went into the library like that.

17:10And that is... He doesn't yell, expecto patronus at the proper moment.

17:19Look what came out of my wand. Stop it, Stevie. Right. Okay, enough. Let's get back to housemasters. Yes. It was, what was the final straw? How did it all end? Well, preposterous, really. I eventually just left and went to London without telling my parents. Oh, it was awful. and I stole a credit card, a couple of credit cards. I stole a wallet. Well, I stole a coat from a pub somewhere. It's a squalid story. But anyway, with these credit cards, I went pretty much ape around Britain. You look bashful. Yeah, I am. I know. It's not something I should boast about. No, but this is it. There's a marked change in how you're holding yourself as you're saying it.

18:11You know, it's so... But it's, you know, how old were you? 16? By that time, I might even have been 17, I think. I was 17, yes. What did you do with the credit cards? Did you go to restaurants? Oh, I stayed at the Ritz at one point. I would sit smoking ridiculous cigarettes. I kind of discovered the great Sobrani cocktails, which were coloured cigarettes. Oh, I used to smoke Sobrani. Oh, yes. You just feel beautiful. I feel like Mia Farrow in Great Gatsby. Because they're just delicate. I mean, how can they possibly be doing you any harm? Quite, exactly. So beautiful. Hang on, I need to know about the Ritz.

18:53So you're 16 years old. You swagger into the Ritz. What do you order? I mean, I didn't dine there. I mean, I had room service, but I didn't go into the dining room, which was a rather frightening room. It still is. It looks like it belongs in Versailles, doesn't it? I love the fact that you drew the line going to the dining room. And yet, what did you order on room service? Well, I think it would have been, I'm afraid, exactly the kinds of food that I thought were glamorous at the time. Like, you know, entrecote steak with a tomato on it and some mushrooms. Classic sort of Bernie Innes style steak.

19:31I was never one for the prawn mayonnaise that would go with it. but I certainly liked Black Forest cherry cake. Oh, yes. A Black Forest gâteau is delicious. Schwarzwald Kircher Zahnentorte, as my mother calls it. It sounds so grand. It does sound better like that, doesn't it? I remember getting to Swindon, and when I got to Swindon, I checked in, and they rolled the card through, and I went to the room. And then I went out again for something or other, a cup of coffee or whatever, When I came back, there were two men in my room. And I just was used to hotel life and thought, we've got male chambermaids.

20:14I said, no, no, it's all right. You don't need to do anything in the room. And they said, Mr. Gray, they said, which was the name of the person whose card I'd taken. And I said, yes. And they went, Wiltshire CID. And I was handcuffed. And so the game was up eventually. And then I was sent off to this prison, which had the loveliest name. Puckle Church, which sounds delightful. So like a little cottage with roses around the door in the village of Puckle Church. Maybe some lovely anthropomorphised animals that wear little jackets. Yes, possibly. It wasn't like that. No, it wasn't at all. It was a young person's offending place.

20:54Were you prepared at all for that type of life? I mean, did boarding school help? Precisely. You put your finger on it, Grace. I mean, one says it as a kind of joke, But if you've been at British boarding school from the age of seven all the way through to adolescence, then prison is, I wouldn't say a breeze exactly, but being away from home in a strange place with loud voices and new people to meet and people in authority over you telling you where to go and having to find the rules out on your own and just having to depend upon yourself and make your own bed and do all those things that one should, you know, I suppose a good thing.

21:36to do. Was it scary? Yeah, at first, certainly. I mean, when I was on my way there, but what I discovered was because it was a young person's institution, almost all the boys there who were my age, 17, 18, 19, I think 20, it was their first time ever away from home. I shared with a Welsh kid who couldn't read. He was about my age, I guess about 17. What was the food like? The food was actually not nearly as bad as you might imagine. I seem to remember I would always finish it and not be revolted by it. Kind of canteen. I'd say no custard when that was, you know, but canteen-like, yeah. I mean, you know, those strange sort of sievey ladles that they use for peas, you know, that lunch ladies use.

22:21What was the nice thing to eat? Well, for me, it was all about quelling hunger. Yes. So some of the meat was okay, sort of mince and things like that. But I'd try and negotiate with him and say, if you give me half as much meat, can you give me twice as much potato? Because I knew that would fill me up more. So your charm came in again. Well, I tried. And you were charming and did that work. It kind of did. I mean, I was regarded as an oddity. I mean, it reflects very poorly on that aspect of British life that we're also painfully familiar with, which is the class system. And they knew that I was not a typical convict.

22:59and just the way I spoke and carried myself and the kind of weird humour that I tried to employ. And so I was very quickly nicknamed the Professor. And because I taught this Welsh fellow who couldn't read, I taught him to read or started to teach him to read and he picked up on it very well. And I remember the bishop came, the bishop of Bath and Wales. The baby-eating bishop of Bath and Wales. Who was later glorified in an episode of Black Hatter. It's absolutely true. He came and spoke and then asked, Does anybody have any questions? And I put my hand up and said, yes, my Lord Bishop, I do have a question.

23:33I was rather startled at being addressed as my Lord Bishop. I was going full Barchester Towers on him. And he said, what is it? I said, it's just a word about the soap. He said, the soap? Yes, the soap that Her Majesty's Prisons provides for us is of a very inferior quality. It doesn't float, it isn't scented, it doesn't rather. All that can be said of it is that it keeps one company in the bath. And he said, well, I will certainly make inquiries about the soap. I know.

24:19This is really not a usual story. You know, to go from this part of your life where you've really messed things up and then to be awarded a scholarship to study English at Cambridge. Of course, the university wasn't to know that I was on probation. I still had my second year of probation to run. Did you not? Well, put it this way, Grace. They never asked. And I certainly didn't volunteer. So, you know, I did my entrance interview and then did the exam. and then suddenly you're an undergraduate like everybody else. It's at Cambridge where you befriend Hugh Laurie and Emma Thompson on the university's comedy and drama scene.

25:03And afterwards, you and Hugh buy a house together in East London. Yes, we do. When you graduated, I was really, I didn't know this about you. And then suddenly you must be responsible for just feeding yourself for the first time. Were you a cook? Could you cook? Were you making culinary discoveries? Well, Hugh's girlfriend, Katie, was there as well, and she was a very good cook. She taught me to make pesto, for example. She handmade pesto with pine nuts and basil in the proper sort of Italian way, and we regarded that as pretty out there. It's like alchemy the first time you see that. Yes, isn't it?

25:40Because it turns into a unique taste that is so different from the sum of its parts. It's so oily and the colour. So that was one of the first things we made. And, you know, we do the usual student, post-student things of spaghetti bolognesis and other such things, you know, whatever is around. But I enjoyed playing my part in that when it was my turn to cook. But what I hadn't discovered any of the useful tips and tricks that I think most people are aware now of how to prepare food rather than just rushing at it. Yes. And that's something we can thank MasterChef and other such programs for, is that so much of it is the preparation.