Stephen Fry: “Lost, alone and I wanted to take my life” | E201

1. 0:00 – 1:44

   Intro

   1. SFStephen Fry0:00

      I was lost and adrift, and really what I first wanted to do was to take my life.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett0:06

      Stephen Fry!

   3. NANarrator0:07

      He's a comedian, an actor, and a national treasure. He's a director, he's a writer. I, I, I've probably missed things out.

   4. SFStephen Fry0:14

      He's a master of language. And tonight's my night! I was a deeply difficult child, and my parents took me to a psychiatrist when I was 14. I started doing weird things. I was sent to prison. So, the best I could do after a disastrous childhood, I decided, was now concentrate on getting into Cambridge. That changed everything.

   5. NANarrator0:36

      Ladies and gentlemen, Stephen Fry!

   6. SFStephen Fry0:39

      I want to please people. And if I don't please them, I get upset. I've, I've done it wrong.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett0:44

      Age 37, you star in a play. The play gets some pretty harsh reviews.

   8. SFStephen Fry0:52

      I was lost and adrift, and really what I first wanted to do was to take my life. Stephen vanished on Monday, leaving a number of letters for friends. That started my journey into my mental health.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett1:04

      When you were 55, it was your third suicide attempt.

   10. SFStephen Fry1:07

       Afraid so, that's right.

   11. SBSteven Bartlett1:09

       Can you take me back to that moment?

   12. SFStephen Fry1:11

       Mm-hmm.

   13. SBSteven Bartlett1:17

       Before this episode starts, I have a small favor to ask from you. Two months ago, 74% of people that watch this channel didn't subscribe. We're now down to 69%. My goal is 50%. So if you've ever liked any of the videos we've posted, if you like this channel, can you do me a quick favor and hit the subscribe button? Thank you and enjoy this episode. I'm,

2. 1:44 – 8:42

   Early context

   1. SBSteven Bartlett1:44

      I'm so fascinated by, um, people's foundations, their earliest years, their context, because it seems so apparent that that ends up shaping who we are and who we become and our orientation in life. So, as I read through your story and your earliest years, it was, it was an unthinkable rollercoaster ride of twists and turns. But what do I need to know about, about Stephen Fry's earliest years to understand the man that's sat in front of me?

   2. SFStephen Fry2:09

      Well, to use the language of the time, I was a disruptive, deeply difficult, screwed-up child. That's kind of the language they used then. And I think, to g- give myself some, I won't say credit, I would probably, in later years, have been diagnosed as having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. I was extremely difficult to keep still, and I found it hard to focus. I was, I'll say, um, vain as it may sound, I think, um, intellectually advanced for my age. I was very quick with language and with speech, um, and just seeing things and remembering things in particular. So I never had to revise and so, in that sense, I had a lot of spare time. But on the other hand, socially, and where it matters to a child, I, I never fitted in or felt fitted in because I was bad at all the things that are valued when you're a child. I, I couldn't catch a ball. You know, I sort of did the, the sort of uncoordinated hand-clapping method of trying to catch-

   3. SBSteven Bartlett3:19

      (laughs)

   4. SFStephen Fry3:19

      ... which is always mocked in like ... just as you've done.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett3:22

      (laughs)

   6. SFStephen Fry3:22

      Um, p- the cry of unco would follow me, short for uncoordinated, and worse. The kind of words we certainly don't use now to describe a, should we say a dyspraxic, um, figure in terms of, you know, physicality. I was just, you know, I, I was growing too fast, too tall, and very thin. Hard to imagine now. Uh, and I wasn't musically very gifted particularly. Uh, uh, and I couldn't draw. So all I had was my passion for language, and, and I loved it and I played with it and I told stories and I tried to make myself less unpopular, put it that way, by, by ... It was a boarding school. I, I was sent away at the age of seven in Britain, which is not a huge country. It's about as far as you can be from home though. My parents were in Norfolk on the East Coast and I was sent to Gloucestershire on the West, um, uh, to a prep school from the age of, as I say, seven. Which to some people sounds a bit cruel and weird to send a seven-year-old boy 200 miles from home and just have them there, but you have to remember two things. One, that was what happened as far as I was concerned. My father had gone to a similar school. My mother had boarded since she was four, um, uh, but that was because she was a Jewish refugee in, in, in England and her father wanted to hide her away from the impending Nazi invasion, and so that, that was a particular reason. But my brother had gone at that age, and of course by definition everyone at the school was in the same boat. So you just thought that's what happened. I mean if you take a child and put them in a cupboard between half past two and three in the afternoon and, um, shout at them through the keyhole every day, they'll just think, "Oh, that's what happens," (laughs) you know? And then you w- welcome them out and give them a big hug and say, "That was your cupboard time." (laughs)

   7. SBSteven Bartlett5:13

      So-

   8. SFStephen Fry5:13

      You know what I mean? Anything you do to a child regularly is the normal world, essentially.

   9. SBSteven Bartlett5:18

      Mm-hmm. Yeah.

   10. SFStephen Fry5:18

       Uh, uh, until they see other children having a different experience. But so class-locked, I guess, I was without really noticing it. Grew up in the countryside in a large house, not Downton Abbey, but you know, we had gardeners and people coming in to clean and that sort of thing. Servants, I suppose. Staff, whatever word you want to use. Um, and it was deep in the countryside, and the other boys that I knew, very few girls, but I did, I did know girls, and even they went away to school. So all the boys I knew were going away to school and the parents you met say, "When are you going off to prep school then, Stephen?" "Okay, when I'm seven." And they go, "Very good."

   11. SBSteven Bartlett5:57

       (laughs)

   12. SFStephen Fry5:58

       Uh, um, that was it, because I didn't know any other children. I mean, that sounds monstrous, but that's just the way things were. You stuck to your own. Um, it, it wasn't...... outright snobbery or anything. It just was, this was the world into which I was born. So you don't really question it particularly. And through most of my prep school time, age seven to 13 is a prep school in, in Britain, I was very disruptive. I passed exams very easily. I tried as hard as I could to get out of any form of physical activity. I gave myself asthma attacks and all the rest of it-

   13. SBSteven Bartlett6:39

       (laughs)

   14. SFStephen Fry6:39

       ... in order to be put off games, because I just hated them, particularly rugby in the muddy, cold, horrible things, running and the collision of bodies and bones. It was just so vile. Um, I wanted to sit and read a book, you know (laughs) , by the side of the field. And humor, uh, particularly then as I moved to 13 and went to the big school, you know, the public school, as it's known. Though, of course, they're not anything but public. They're private. Um, and that, that was scary 'cause there's 600 boys, um, rather than the prep school's 90, so it's, uh, much less of a little nest and much more of a "Woo." But I was 13, and so when you're 13, as you know too well, chemicals starts, start to boil and bubble inside you and things begin to happen in your mind and soul. And, um, I was not prepared for the astonishing cataclysm, the catastrophe, the glorious catastrophe of love. Uh, it had never occurred to me that it was, it would be what it was. Which is silly because we grow up hearing nothing but love songs, and what did the Beatles do? Go on about love me do and please, please me and, and, and money can't buy you love and hold my hand. Everything's a love song. And suddenly, when you fall in love, all those lyrics make sense, and you realize there's nothing else in the world, and nothing else is even slightly as important. And of course, I was in love with another boy, and I was aware that that was probably not the right thing, and it, it threw me out of everything really. I, I just stopped being able even to pretend to be a normal, well-behaved schoolboy. I, I started doing weird things like climbing the roofs of all the buildings, the big chapels and churches and, uh, classrooms. And so it was the first school from which I was expelled. I'm, I'm gonna compress the story 'cause it gets kind of-

   15. SBSteven Bartlett8:34

       Mm-hmm.

   16. SFStephen Fry8:34

       ... goes on and on and on. I was then expelled from another one, and then kind of another one, and then I left and went to London. Left home, went to London.

3. 8:42 – 10:52

   Credit card fraud - getting arrested

   1. SFStephen Fry8:42

      And the, (laughs) the major problem there was I was in a pub, it was getting a bit chilly. I saw a coat, liked the look of it, half inched it, stole it, and left the pub, and then discovered there was a wallet in it. Oh, my goodness. And two credit cards. So I went absolutely nuts around Britain with these credit cards, staying in grand hotels and buying things and traveling and so on. In those days, they didn't even have magnetic strips on the back of credit cards for, for, you know, uh, the... You, you just used to roll them on a piece of carbon to, to take an imprint. So there was... It was very easy to use them fraudulently as long as you looked v- vaguely convincing. Uh, I was aware, 'cause my father had once lost his Barclay card, that it was the bank that paid, not the poor fellow whose cards I'd stolen. So I didn't feel guilty in that rather pathetic way we do when we try and square our dishonesty and, you know... (laughs) Um, eventually I ended up in Swindon, of all unlikely towns. I think I was going to meet a school friend and the idea was we were going to go to the Reading Festival. Um, so I stayed in a hotel in Swindon and that's when, uh, a couple of m- I got back to my room having been shopping and there were a couple of men in the room, which I thought was rather weird. Uh, and being used to hotels by this time, I assumed they were, like, cleaning or maintenance people. I said, "No, it's all right. Don't need anything." And they, they then said my name, only not my name, the name that was, the name of the fellow whose credit cards I had stolen. Let's say his name is Smith, so they said, "Mr. Smith?" And I went, "Yes?" And they said, "Wiltshire CID," and held it up. (laughs)

   2. SBSteven Bartlett10:29

      Oh, Jesus Christ.

   3. SFStephen Fry10:29

      And suddenly I realized the, the jig was up. I was sent to prison, uh, on remand. I was sent to a young person's, uh, institution on remand while they waited. There were seven counties, I think, that had paperwork that I'd traveled in with these cards that had to be caught up with. Um...

   4. SBSteven Bartlett10:47

      You're 18?

   5. SFStephen Fry10:48

      Uh, 17-

   6. SBSteven Bartlett10:49

      17?

   7. SFStephen Fry10:49

      Just turning 18. That's right.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett10:51

      Right.

   9. SFStephen Fry10:51

      Yeah, by this time.

4. 10:52 – 15:39

   Feeling like an outsider

   1. SFStephen Fry10:52

   2. SBSteven Bartlett10:52

      A- at the... So it was interesting because I was reading about your... As I read through those first 18 years of your life, I saw someone with clearly huge intellectual potential, but also, which doesn't seem to be very common with someone who exhibits those qualities, someone who was kind of like rebelling against society, had this sort of, I think in your own words, "An addiction to stealing things."

   3. SFStephen Fry11:12

      Mm-hmm.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett11:13

      Um, and is that... And I, I couldn't quite figure out why, but, I mean, what I'm, what I'm understanding now is because it comes back to that feeling of being an outsider and kind of rebelling against the society that you weren't able to fit into.

   5. SFStephen Fry11:23

      I think that's exactly right. And I, I, my parents did send me to a psychiatrist when I was 14, 15. He was, oddly enough, a member of Parliament and a junior health minister as well as a psychiatrist. Um, so a very grand Harley Street office, you know, with one of those enormous Montblanc fountain pens-

   6. SBSteven Bartlett11:42

      (laughs)

   7. SFStephen Fry11:42

      ... the size of a small submarine with which he slowly writes things down. And, uh, he was slightly annoyed my parents weren't, uh, in the diplomatic service because th- apparently the way I behaved and the, and the things I did were very typical of people from unsettled families.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett12:01

      Ah, yeah.

   9. SFStephen Fry12:01

      Um, and, you know, were sort of constantly moving and, and so on. But he, he prescribed me something, and later I found out, when I was doing a documentary about mental health and I went all the way back to my school and spoke to my old schoolmaster, he had a copy of a letter from that psychiatrist in which the psychiatrist had written, "Bipolar?" Uh, which I knew nothing about at the time. That was when I was 15. So there was clearly some mental... They recognized there was a mental kink, if you like.... a, a hundred years earlier would've been called a moral kink, basically. They're just saying he's a, he's a bad lot-

   10. SBSteven Bartlett12:35

       Mm-hmm.

   11. SFStephen Fry12:35

       ... you know? But, uh, we were on our way to being more understanding about children's beh- behavior. But yeah, it's that whole mixture of my love of literature and stories, and wanting to be involved in the, in the world of ideas desperately to learn more and to understand more and to share ideas. Um, uh, a cheap wish watching Parkinson every Saturday night to be famous-

   12. SBSteven Bartlett12:59

       Mm-hmm.

   13. SFStephen Fry12:59

       ... but not sure how, how that could happen. It seemed absurd. And a deep, deep, like a, like hot lead leaking in the stomach, whenever I contemplated my sexuality, this feeling. Because all, I, I read and read and read around it. You know, you go to a library in those days, of course there was no worldwide web, so you used what was known as the bibliography at the ba-

   14. SBSteven Bartlett13:20

       Mm-hmm.

   15. SFStephen Fry13:20

       ... at the back of a book, which would recommend other books that were sources for that book. And so, you would build a web of connections of... So I read a biography of Oscar Wilde, and that led me to biographies of other figures in his circle, and other figures later, and so on. And I saw there was this extraordinary tradition of literary artistic people, um, who were, who were queer, as we'd say now. And of course, the ones I was reading about were, were, were born in y- mostly into an elite part of the society that allowed them to go and live in North Africa or Italy or Greece or somewhere where it wasn't quite so dark and s- you know, oppressive. Uh, uh, but the average person, you know, who was born queer, uh, had a, a miserable outcome. It was illegal and your... police would, uh, treat you dreadfully, and then you... newspaper articles. And, and so, I saw ahead of me a life of shame and secrecy, and all abstinence and, you know, sorrow, and it just, you know, that there was no possible way the world would be open and free for me. It would just be, uh, the best I could do after a disastrous childhood, I decided, in prison, was now concentrate on getting into Cambridge, become an academic, forget anything about the world, because the world wasn't for me, and that would be enough. And it would also repay my parents for the extraordinary stress and, and distress I'd, I'd, I'd given them. And so, I, uh, when I was put on probation finally at the end of the prison thing, having served quite a bit in remand, I was just put on two years' probation. Went home, told my parents I would look after myself entirely. Got jobs, got myself a moped (laughs) .

   16. SBSteven Bartlett15:06

       Mm-hmm.

   17. SFStephen Fry15:06

       Went into Norwich, did a course, and amazingly got a scholarship to Cambridge, Oxford. Yeah. So that changed everything.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett15:16

       It is the most remarkable turn, I think, that I've ever, I've ever seen in someone's life. I think I've never seen someone who has a series of sort of criminal, um, engagements, gets expelled from school multiple times. I read at 17 there, there was a suicide attempt after you-

   19. SFStephen Fry15:34

       Yes.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett15:34

       ... had an argument with your father-

   21. SFStephen Fry15:36

       That's right.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett15:36

       ... which led you to be in hospital as well.

   23. SFStephen Fry15:38

       That's right.

5. 15:39 – 18:48

   Going to Cambridge

   1. SFStephen Fry15:39

   2. SBSteven Bartlett15:39

      You end up in jail, and then from jail you go to Cambridge. (laughs)

   3. SFStephen Fry15:43

      Yeah.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett15:44

      It doesn't seem like the path. (laughs)

   5. SFStephen Fry15:45

      It doesn't seem normal. And while I was at Cambridge for the first year, I was on probation still.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett15:50

      Jesus Christ.

   7. SFStephen Fry15:50

      I remember saying to, to, to one of my, uh, tutors or supervisors, I, I said, "Oh, look at the date." I said, uh, "I'm no longer on probation." And he said, "You weren't on probation." Thinking I meant some sort of academic probation, you know-

   8. SBSteven Bartlett16:04

      Mm-hmm.

   9. SFStephen Fry16:04

      ... that I hadn't done good enough essays and that I was being given a warning that I better work harder. He said, "You're not on probation." I said, "Well, actually I..." (laughs) I told him. He said, "What the hell?"

   10. SBSteven Bartlett16:13

       (laughs) "Look out."

   11. SFStephen Fry16:14

       "You know, wh- wh- why didn't you tell us?" I said, "Well, why didn't you ask me?"

   12. SBSteven Bartlett16:18

       (laughs) Why?

   13. SFStephen Fry16:18

       They never, they never asked. So, so but it is extraordinary how everything turned, because, you know, in the first kinda week, I met Emma Thompson, who was an undergraduate, uh, d- reading the same subject, English. And I then saw her in a play, and I was just knocked out. I couldn't believe it. I had considered maybe I should do some acting at Cambridge. I started doing that and really enjoyed it, but did lots of other plays as well. And I wrote a play called Latin! That was a, a comedy.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett16:49

       Mm-hmm.

   15. SFStephen Fry16:50

       And that went to Edinburgh, and it won a prize. And, and Emma, um, came to see it and brought someone along to watch it that she thought, um, might enjoy it, wh- and I didn't remember this experience. But that person was Hugh Laurie, and he apparently came and watched the play and, and said hello briefly. Then, at the end of my second year, I was approached by Emma, who said, "I'm gonna come around and introduce you to Hugh. There, you have met him." And I said, "No, I haven't." And she said, "Yes, you have." Um, anyway, she took me over to his college and knocked on the door, and the door opened. He was sitting on the bed with a guitar in his lap, and he said, "Hello." And (laughs) I said, "Hello." And his girlfriend was there making a cup of tea, and he said, "I'm just writing a song." And he started to play a bit of the verse of the song, and I said, "Oh, it's fabulous." And I sat down next to him and we started to work on, on the lyrics of it. And I added some ideas and then we, you know, built it up into three or four verses and the choruses, and the song was finished. And then he picked up a piece of paper and we started to write a sketch. And Emma and Katie were just staring at us. (laughs)

   16. SBSteven Bartlett17:56

       Mm-hmm.

   17. SFStephen Fry17:56

       They said, "What's happened?" We didn't, you know, we barely didn't ask each other our names. We just immediately just fitted. I'm sliding my fingers into each other-

   18. SBSteven Bartlett18:06

       (laughs)

   19. SFStephen Fry18:06

       ... uh, to give, uh, an example. Um, it, it was... I, I describe it as like falling in love, but in a, a platonic comedy love. Um, we just seemed to gel straight away. It was most extraordinary. So from that moment on, we started writing stuff together, um, for our show. And I, thinking that either I was gonna stay at Cambridge to be an academic or maybe I was gonna go to a drama school afterwards and join the Royal Shakespeare Society and hold spears and, um, bellow speeches. Uh, and now there was this strange possibility of using comedy as a, as a, a, a way of going forward, and maybe not staying at Cambridge at all, but trying to, you know, tread the boards in an amusing

6. 18:48 – 23:31

   Why acting?

   1. SFStephen Fry18:48

      way.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett18:48

      Why acting?I, I s- I sat here with Maisie Williams, who's the, the young Game of Thrones actress.

   3. SFStephen Fry18:54

      Indeed, I know who you mean. Yeah.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett18:55

      Yeah. Yeah, and I, I find... You know, and then I read this book called, um, The Body Holds the Score, and it talks about six ways that we can help our mental health and things like yoga and all these kinds of things, but one of them is acting.

   5. SFStephen Fry19:10

      That's true.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett19:10

      And it talks about the role that ac- you know, this kind of separation from identity and how that can be liberating and wonderful. And when I, when I heard you describe your first acting experiences, you used words like blissful and amazing.

   7. SFStephen Fry19:22

      Mm-hmm.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett19:22

      And, and as if you'd found your place in the world, almost.

   9. SFStephen Fry19:25

      It's true. I mean, it is also, it is the acknowledgment, the, the love or the sense of attention you get from an audience that you're... Uh, it's not... I mean, of course it's a kind of vanity, but it's not that you want to be praised exactly. It's just you want to experience that moment and keep experiencing it. It's not the "Oh, look, you must write marvelous things about me." Or come up-

   10. SBSteven Bartlett19:48

       Mm-hmm.

   11. SFStephen Fry19:48

       ... after the show and tell me I'm a genius. It, uh, that's all embarrassing. What, what, but, but the moment you're on stage and you feel that people are looking at you, and not admiring you, Stephen, but that they are... You have won them over. They are following the story of the character you are and they are s- sucked up into it, and you've made it. It's a wonderful feeling. But something even more primal than that, because I can remember when I was very young, five maybe, and my brother was seven, going to a pantomime in Norfolk. And the usual thing happened, Buttons comes out and goes, "Hello boys and girls. Who'd like to come up on stage with me now and sing a song?" My brother dived under the seat and made noises-

   12. SBSteven Bartlett20:28

       (laughs)

   13. SFStephen Fry20:28

       ... (laughs) like a piece of dust so that no one would notice him. Like most children, he was damned if he was gonna get up and make an exhibition of himself in public. But I stood on my tiptoes with my arm up so high that I nearly split the membranes of my underarm-

   14. SBSteven Bartlett20:43

       (laughs)

   15. SFStephen Fry20:43

       ... you know? Going, "Me, me, me, me." And we both had the same parents, we both had the same DNA, more or less. Not identical, we're not identical twins, but I mean, really, we're pretty similar in terms of our birth and, and our p- parentage and, and environmental upbringing. And yet he would rather have cut his arm off than go on stage, and I would cut my arm off in order to go on stage. And that's just something that was built in. And that was when I was y- too young to be self-conscious, to have, if you like, those kind of issues of self-worth and, uh, um, you know, wanting to lose myself somewhere else. It was just a, a young showoffy, "I wanna be up there." That's-

   16. SBSteven Bartlett21:25

       Mm-hmm.

   17. SFStephen Fry21:26

       ... you know, you see a stage, you wanna be on it. Much of what you say about the, the mental health aspect is true, but it is also the case, and I'm sure you've, you sort of heard stories about this, that even to when you're in a very long running play, when you're in the wings for the first night, you know, there is, you are trembling, you are white, your heart rate is really up, and, and you step on stage and you do it. But the weird thing is six months later, if it's a long run, you're standing in the wings, you're, you're talking to the stage management people like that. You're going, "Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, we... What's, I, I'll see you after this scene." And you go, and you go on. Doctors have done this. They've wired people up. Your heart rate is as high on that night as it would have been on the first night. It's just you've got used to it. Um, the comparison, and it's not a comparison of quality or value, is with an RAF pilot. Every day, they, they're, they're, they're flying up like that, and, and it's... They love it. They're just made for it. I mean, it's frightening and they hate to see their companions killed and, and, um, and so on, but the awful thing is when it stops. Suddenly, the war's over. Every single day, you were in a Spitfire, you were facing death, you were doing such amazing things, and now there's nothing. And similarly, in a long play, of course it's nothing like (laughs) being in the Air Force. It's of no (laughs) importance to anybody except other people. But nonetheless, it does cause the similar kind of shakes in your body and the excitement.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett22:57

       Mm-hmm.

   19. SFStephen Fry22:57

       And then that's the end of the run. Stop. And it does explain, I think, a lot of the substance abuse, you know, the addictions and the kind of, uh, unhappinesses and breakdowns and, um, short term marriages and, and, and relationships that, that, that are also common in the acting world. I mean, it may be true that there is something good for mental health, but I don't think anybody (laughs) would say-

   20. SBSteven Bartlett23:19

       Mm-hmm.

   21. SFStephen Fry23:19

       ... that as a group, actors (laughs) exhibit mental health of a, of a, of a happier and better kind than, than other groups of people. Um...

   22. SBSteven Bartlett23:27

       Mm-hmm.

   23. SFStephen Fry23:27

       So, so, you know, it's a, it's a, it's a complicated story really, isn't it?

7. 23:31 – 34:15

   Where happiness really comes from

   1. SFStephen Fry23:31

   2. SBSteven Bartlett23:31

      It's so interesting, that, that sort of anti-climax. I think I've, we've referred to that before as like gold medal depression.

   3. SFStephen Fry23:37

      We, we tend to set ourself goals of, "Oh, if, if only I could live in that kind of a village in, you know, in the south of England." Like, uh, quite near a station and nice little house, but not too expensive. And yeah, and then you get it. And so yeah, you live in the suburbs. Hooray. Um, oh, oh, maybe that car, that, that new one there-

   4. SBSteven Bartlett23:55

      Mm-hmm.

   5. SFStephen Fry23:55

      ... that Tesla or whatever. I'll get a... Then I'll be happy. You don't literally say, "Then I'll be happy," but there's a kind of sense of, "That's all I really want." And each of these goals is met, and it isn't it. As the, there's a line of T.S. Eliot, "That's not it. That's not it at all." And, and we go through life thinking, "That's not it. That's not it at all." There is something in all of us, a hole, a need for connection and love and truth and, and a sense of something beautiful beyond. And we can... If you're religious, you call it heaven, and if you're a, a humanist, you, you, you know, you call it a full and achieved life, um, of, of friendship and, you know, elements of sacrifice and so on. But you know, you know that there's a hope for it. But, but if you, if you mislabel it and think that it's connected with money or cars or mortgages or jobs or status, you're never happy because of your status, because of things you've achieved. You... Happiness comes from...... somewhere else, and of course, I've yet to meet anyone who can tell you where it comes from, regularly, where it can be tapped like some resource. Ah, that's where you get your happiness. We know there's fake happiness from a s- a blow of a drug or something like that, and that couldn't be a more fake happiness, um, and there's the happiness of sitting around a table with friends, those beautiful fleeting moments with friends and family where it's all working and people aren't shouting at each other and you can just look at each other. I- I- I was at a memorial service and, uh, for- for a very dear friend, the composer, Leslie Bricusse, you know, who wrote Feeling Good and, uh, Pure Imagination for Willy Wonka and, uh, Goldfinger and a l- a lot of great songs. He was an amazing songwriter. And, uh, and I remembered I had this diary entry when I was just getting to know him when they... there was a party, I think it was his birthday, and it was full of people, some of whom super famous and extraordinary people. But he... I remember just catching sight of him and thinking he looked so like a Persian cat, just looking from one friend to another with this huge smile on his face, just being happy to have his friends around him. It's a simple thing, and yet it's the best thing, and- and we chase... we chase things that give us less time to see our friends. We- we- we- we- we chase work targets and we chase journeys and holidays and things with individuals and so on that... But... And I think we grow away from it. I think the older you get, the- the- the less you appreciate friendship, which is really sad. When you're in your 20s, you tend to do things as a group.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett26:42

      Mm-hmm.

   7. SFStephen Fry26:42

      You go on holidays as a group because you haven't yet got married and p- partnered off and paired off. So I don't know if you agree with me, but I do think maybe that one of the... one of the jobs of getting older... Well, I'm convinced that one of the jobs of getting older is not to become gnarled, you know, like a tree. When a tree is young, you can bend it. It's, you know, a green stick, as they call it. You can bend it and shape it-

   8. SBSteven Bartlett27:05

      Mm-hmm.

   9. SFStephen Fry27:05

      ... and so on. But once it gets old, you know, and it starts getting that bark, and if you try to bend it, it would snap, and- and we've become a bit like that.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett27:14

       Coming back to the- the- the- the first point you said there about the goals we should be striving for, I found that really interesting. If not... if not striving for a gold medal or this thing or that thing, how does someone, you know, listening to this now, what kind of goals do you think would protect them against that gold medal depression? What kind of orientation?

   11. SFStephen Fry27:32

       It's an interesting point, and of course, I- I- I, you know, obviously understand that there are people who need to meet goals in order to pay debts and, you know, that there are certain amounts of money they have to have to pay for their heating and their mortgage and all- all the rest of it, and I'm obviously not suggesting that that's valueless because you need to keep a roof over your head and everything else. But in terms of one's own personal sense of fulfillment and self-worth and achievement, um, I'm more and more convinced that it comes from how you treat people and how they treat you back and how you... how you would try to be a better person. I know it sounds really silly. I'm not a religious figure at all, um, but- but I'm very interested in religions, um, and I can understand that in some cases religions help cement a sense of community.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett28:23

       Mm-hmm.

   13. SFStephen Fry28:24

       I- I... Where I don't like it is where it's exclusive, of course, where you have to buy into a certain set of ideas and, uh, so- so-called truths in order to be part of that community. But I can understand how looking at a wider sense of- of life, and it's really about when you're falling asleep at night, and this may just be me, can I fall asleep at night and feel I've been a- a reasonably okay person that day? Is this someone I have to apologize to next morning? Did I... Was I short and sharp with someone? Was I a bit mean? Was I lazy? Did I... did I l- lie and rah because I wanted my own way there? Um, and I... (laughs) and I'm not suggesting I'm a saint and I always manage it too, but I do have a very loud voice in my head.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett29:14

       (sniffs)

   15. SFStephen Fry29:14

       Philosophers call it a deontic or deontological voice, this sense of obligation that is a peculiarity, it seems, of our species. As far as we know, (laughs) the image I always use because they look so cheerful, an Amazonian tree frog perched on a branch with its big grin isn't thinking, "Oh God, I was a terrible Amazonian tree frog yesterday. I really let myself down. I was mean. I was unkind. I must try to be a better Amazonian tree frog." What we admire about animals is they spend 100% of every day being themselves, and we as humans are fully aware that we don't. We are not fully ourselves. We lie, we hide behind, we pretend, we fail, and we judge ourselves. Now, that peculiarity of humanity has tried... (laughs) people have tried to explain it in different ways. Obviously, the Genesis myth is that it... it... we ate a fruit. It gave us the knowledge of good and evil and the- this sense of shame of our physical selves, all- all- all those things that separate us from animals. Because humans, since we were cognitively conscious, have been aware that we're animals because we can see that we defecate and eat and sleep j- and mate just like other animals, and sometimes very quite close to the other animals if we... depending on what part of the world we live. But we can also see that we have these other things that animals don't. Who gave them to us? Where did they come from? What do they mean? And how do we live up to them? Are they a curse or a blessing? Do they make us mini gods or do they make us the playthings of gods, a cruel kind of, you know, little... "As flies to wanton boys, to the gods are we. They kill us for their sport," as, uh, Webster put it. (laughs) And, you know, so... and- and those- that's- those oldest questions still-... still really obsess us. (clears throat) Particularly now, of course, because in the age of AI, we're- we're able to be gods ourselves. We- we- we are making sentient beings and we will have to decide whether, like the Greek gods, we give them fire or deny them fire, and, um, maybe they'll kill us. But will they have what we have, this sense of, "I try to be good"? I mean, you try to be good, don't you?

   16. SBSteven Bartlett31:37

       Try my best.

   17. SFStephen Fry31:37

       Yeah.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett31:38

       I fail. (laughs)

   19. SFStephen Fry31:38

       Yeah, you fail. It's right. And- and- and we're all like that, but we don't pay much attention to that, and yet it's the most extraordinary thing about us. It really is. And- and- and, um, as I say, I'm- I'm, you know, I'm- I'm not a moral ... I'm not a model of moral probity and, uh, um, rectitude of any kind, but I do have a lo- that loud voice, and I've always had it. I mean, when I was- when my grandfather died, and (laughs) this is very ... but, and I first learned to play with myself, I was terrified that he was watching me because he'd died. And I thought, "I can't do this because my granddaddy's watching me and it's just awful." And in a sense, that in ... there you have it in one image. That's what humanity's been cursed with-

   20. SBSteven Bartlett32:25

       (laughs)

   21. SFStephen Fry32:25

       ... since our birth. The big daddy in the sky is watching you and it's- it's making you self-conscious and you're holding back from your true nature because, "Well, I can't do that in front of God." You know? (laughs)

   22. SBSteven Bartlett32:36

       Mm-hmm.

   23. SFStephen Fry32:36

       And, um, somehow we have to square that and give ourselves permission to be who we were born to be, and allow ourselves to live the full lives that we feel that we're on a journey to, but accept also that we will feel that we let ourselves down and that we're guilty of this and guilty of that. It's a, you know, very tempting to be more like, you know, someone like Samuel Beckett and the absurdists and just say there is no meaning to any of this. It's absurd. Life is absurd and meaningless. I know, uh, very well that in- in philosophy there are very, very few professional philosophers who believe in free will.

   24. SBSteven Bartlett33:15

       Mm-hmm.

   25. SFStephen Fry33:16

       But we all live as if free will exists, and we all have to live as if we are accountable for our actions, otherwise society falls apart. But if deep down we know that- that- that really there is no free will, uh, uh, I mean, the most extreme examples are, in- in a sense, the easiest to see it. Well, uh, a psychopath is- is not just a murderer, but is a murderer who is cunning and who plans coldly their killing. They choose to kill. So you may say they're the most evil kind. But no one on this earth has ever chosen to be a psychopath. It's a condition. You don't ... It's like saying, "Oh, he's an asthmatic. We must- we must, uh, we must lock him up." Well, you don't choose to be asthmatic. (laughs) You don't choose to be psychopathic. The case of psychopathic, you're harming a- a lot of people and causing misery, so clearly we've got to find a way of removing them from- from the natural orbit of humanity. But, you know, it's ... this ... I don't know. I don't know what I'm talking about, but I'm having fun.

8. 34:15 – 38:17

   How can we change who we are?

   1. SFStephen Fry34:15

   2. SBSteven Bartlett34:15

      Well, on that point, on that point of the psychopath, how- how possible do you think it is to really change, um, who we are? It's a bit of a strange question, but at our very core-

   3. SFStephen Fry34:27

      No, it's a good question.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett34:28

      ... past the age of, you know, 18, you know, the im- the imprints have been made into our character, our identity, our sense of being, our search for validation, as you've described and I've seen through your story and mine, how possible is it to change who we are? And are we anybody, or are we just a- a byproduct of our sort of DNA and our experiences?

   5. SFStephen Fry34:45

      That's such a good point. I mean, we are ... in- in that sense, we are a story, and a story is a- is- is- is, um, a- a mixture of- of- of different elements. Um, and a story's a myth. It's, it doesn't happen. You know, it's a bit... I'm sure you've read the- the Noel Yuval Harari.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett35:05

      Yeah, yeah, yes.

   7. SFStephen Fry35:05

      That wonderful chapter where he just sort of proves that Peugeot doesn't exist. (laughs) It's a myth. You know, it has a symbol. It has a ... people working for it, but there is no such thing as Peugeot. There's a Peugeot car, but that's not Peugeot.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett35:18

      (laughs)

   9. SFStephen Fry35:19

      And- and- and so on. And similarly, there is us. Um, now if I cut my toe off, I'm still Stephen. I'm just Stephen with ... I'm missing a toe. If I cut my head off, I'm dead, so obviously, you know, I'm the remains of Stephen. But if, uh, if I start in ... start cutting more and more bits, when do I stop being myself? It's- it's- it's- it's such a- an extraordinary idea. We're aware of our own self, and unless we have particular problems, uh, uh, on the neurodiversity scale, for example, uh, we also fully understand other people's selves and that they have a self, and that therefore they all have their own will and their own desire, and the chances are their appetites will be similar to ours. So, you know, if we've both not eaten for a day and someone brings in a tray and there's a- a cake on it, we'll look at each other and we'll know we each want that cake.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett36:11

       Mm-hmm.

   11. SFStephen Fry36:11

       You know, we've projected into the other's mind. I mean, in the most simple way-

   12. SBSteven Bartlett36:15

       (laughs) Yeah.

   13. SFStephen Fry36:15

       ... theory of mind kinda shows us that. Um, but, uh, what that self is, how it can be in any way quantified, it can't be removed from the body as far as we know. I mean, obviously there are superstitions and people talk about astral projection and so on, but there's no evidence that it's ever been done. Um, you can, in a metaphysical way, reach yourself into other people's selves even after you're dead. Shakespeare does that every day to different people reading his sonnets or, uh, or- or Jimi Hendrix or John Lennon does, who- who- whoever. You know, I'm reached by David Bowie when I turn on Starman. I feel, uh, his self is connecting with me. His art, yes, his poetry, his vision, but also the self. He talks to you. That's what art does, and- and- and in- in that sense, you are immortal. Indeed, that was Shakespeare's obsession. "So long as men can live and eyes can see, so long lives this, and this gives life to thee." You know, he was aware that there is ...... there is a way that we communicate beyond language. Um, the, the actual sound in the throat of, of words being said, vibrating the ear is one way for language to get into us. The other, a very recent invention, only 5,000 years, is, is reading characters on a page, uh, uh, um, and writing them. Uh, but they, but the other way is, is more, is, is harder to understand, isn't it? But we do connect with people who are dead, who are away from us, um, who we remember. And there are, their self is as real without a body as the self of someone who has a body. So in that sense, there is an immortality, but it's held together by communal memory and by means of communication like print. And, and if they die, then the, the selves of the past die as well, don't they?

9. 38:17 – 44:40

   What has changed from the core of your younger self

   1. SFStephen Fry38:17

   2. SBSteven Bartlett38:17

      Since you were a young man, at the core of you, what do you think has actually changed? If I went to the very core of you and I could, I could see it, uh, I don't know, hold it in my hand, what would be different at the very core of you between the age of, you know, 20, 25 and today, let's say?

   3. SFStephen Fry38:35

      I think I'm much calmer. I think I'm more accepting of things. Um, I feel less need to prove myself. It may, (laughs) may not sound like that, the way I've been rattling on. Um, I, I, of course, have found, um, a kind of permanent love. I s- I kind of, that's very ungracious, but I got married s- nearly eight years ago. Um, and that, that's changed things, to be, to be married, especially talking about that child early on who knew he was gay and, and saw ahead of him only a life of exile and shame. The, the, the prospect that I could ever actually be married and live happily, and, and for it to be of no big deal to anybody. I mean, there must be people, I suppose, in the world who think it's disgusting.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett39:24

      (laughs)

   5. SFStephen Fry39:24

      But (laughs) you don't often bump into them. Um, so that, that, that's made a big difference. And, uh, I'm ambitious only for an ex- if there's an exciting project, like this film I told you, I'm learning Polish, uh, at the moment, to, to, to, to, to be in a film. And I'm, I'm very excited and ambitious about the film, not because I want it to win awards and be a huge success, but because I really am, I haven't done anything quite like it for a very long time. And so that's a, a, a thrill. Um, and otherwise, I, you know, I suppose I just, I don't need, I don't need to connect to people in the way I used to. I used to be slight- uh, really shy enough to need cocaine to stay up at night and to go to parties. There was, you know, quite a few years of that.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett40:19

      15 years?

   7. SFStephen Fry40:20

      15 years of that, you've done far too much research, haven't you? (laughs)

   8. SBSteven Bartlett40:23

      Yeah. Okay, yeah. I heard-

   9. SFStephen Fry40:24

      But, yeah, and, and, I mean, I look back at it and I think, "I, I cannot believe I was such an ass." But on the other hand, there are friendships I made that I don't necessarily regret and things I discovered and learned about myself and so on. But m- mostly, of course, it was (laughs) a very, very wrong course. Fortunately, not a fatally wrong course either in literal terms or in terms of career. But, um, I realized that I am a very, very quiet domestic soul. I don't like going out, I don't like parties. I, I, I, I said, I said to my husband a couple years ago, I said, "I don't think I've ever met a person or read about a person that I hate as much as I hate parties." (laughs) He said-

   10. SBSteven Bartlett41:04

       (laughs)

   11. SFStephen Fry41:05

       ... "That's a bit strong. Do you hate parties more than you hate Hitler?" I said, "Well, I suppose."

   12. SBSteven Bartlett41:09

       (laughs)

   13. SFStephen Fry41:10

       (laughs) Uh, that was just a sort of weird moment, didn't it? I, I do go to parties, but I don't... Standing up talking to people with a drink in my hand is just my idea of agony.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett41:19

       Sounds awful.

   15. SFStephen Fry41:19

       'Cause I'll tell you a- another secret which you may have uncovered, but it's an embarrassing one, is that I have a condition called prosopagnosia. It means face blindness. It means I will see you in the street two days time and I will blank you because I won't recognize you, I'm, I'm afraid. And, and it's absolutely heart and gut-wrenching because you are convinced that people think you're looking down at them, you don't care about them, you haven't bothered to re- remember them-

   16. SBSteven Bartlett41:46

       Mmm.

   17. SFStephen Fry41:46

       ... because they're unimportant to you, and it really isn't that. I remember names all the time. Most people, the other way round, like-

   18. SBSteven Bartlett41:52

       I'm the other way round.

   19. SFStephen Fry41:53

       Yeah, I remember faces but not names.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett41:54

       Yeah, yeah.

   21. SFStephen Fry41:54

       But I... And it, it is, I, I have a little card in my wallet that says, you know, Prosopagnosia Society (laughs) and I give it to people, I say, "Oh God, I'm so sorry. But look, believe me." Um, you know, like so I did an event for Mind last night and there were some wonderful people in it, I was moderating it for the, the, the mental health charity. And I, I was thinking in the cab on the way home, I said, "If I see any one of those people, and we had this wonderful conversation, the chances of my recognizing their faces are so low." It's awful. And, and, you know, you t- teach yourself various things like the color of what someone's wearing on a particular day or if they have a, you know, a, you know, e- earring or some sort of jewelry or something external to the face. But it's a, it's a, a very odd one. So that makes parties even more difficult.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett42:40

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10. 44:40 – 50:38

    Lowest moment in your life

    1. SBSteven Bartlett44:40

       Age 37, you star in a play-

    2. SFStephen Fry44:43

       Mm-hmm.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett44:44

       ... which again, called Cell Mates, I believe.

    4. SFStephen Fry44:46

       That's right.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett44:47

       Um, the play gets some pretty harsh reviews-

    6. SFStephen Fry44:50

       Mm-hmm.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett44:50

       ... to, to say, to say the least from a lot of the big newspapers a- as such. Um, and that's another real low mo- moment in your life where-

    8. SFStephen Fry44:58

       Hugely so.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett44:59

       Can you take me back to that moment?

    10. SFStephen Fry45:01

        Yeah, it was pretty grim. I mean, I, I, we, we'd done previews of it in Guildford and, um, maybe what, Guildford and Richmond, I think, before coming into the West End, into the, uh, Noel Coward Theatre as it is now, the Alberry as it was, I think. And I was with Rik Mayall, whom I loved and sweet funny man, and he was brilliant and, and, and charming as always. The rest of the cast were nice. It was written by Simon Gray, a British playwright, and he also directed it. And I was playing George Blake, the spy, the British spy, uh, who was sent to Wormwood Scrubs and then amazingly escaped. Um, I was never comfortable in the play, and I was beginning to feel lost and adrift and deeply unhappy. And I couldn't understand why, because the play wasn't that much of a disaster. I mean, they a- had good audiences and they applauded at the end. And some people said, "Yeah, I don't think it's his best play." But it, it's not, you know, it wasn't an absolute catastrophe, shall we say.

    11. SBSteven Bartlett46:00

        At this point, because this is important context, you, you're well-established.

    12. SFStephen Fry46:05

        Yes. Yes.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett46:05

        You're, you're, in your, in, in writing, in acting.

    14. SFStephen Fry46:08

        Yes, things like Blackadder and Jeeves and Wooster and, and Fry and Laurie had happened and, and my books had, you know, been selling. So I was, you know, in the, in the public eye. I was well-known. Um, anyway, one Saturday, there was a Saturday night, uh, I guess the press night had been on Friday or something like that. So we then had a Saturday night, and then on Sunday there were the Sunday papers, of which I saw some, and some of which were deeply unkind to me. And, uh, and that, that did make a difference. I mean, I, I've said I didn't go just because I didn't like the reviews. It, it wasn't, it wasn't entirely that. That would have been a bit weak, uh, uh, and, and certainly was a weak thing to have done anyway. But, uh, it was a whole concatenation of something wrong in my head. I just suddenly saw myself as in the wrong place doing the wrong things, and I wanted to get away from everything I knew. Um, and really what I first wanted to do was to take my life. And I, I did run the car engine in the lockup garage of, of, of the flat where I was in London, and then realized it was a catalytic converter (laughs) and that it wasn't really going to do much harm to me. And then there was stuff, you know, I was just coughing a bit. And, um, uh, and, and-

    15. SBSteven Bartlett47:21

        That's quite a significant decision to make following...

    16. SFStephen Fry47:25

        I know. I know. I just wanted out, really. That's it. I just, wherever I was, I wanted to be somewhere else. And, and if it was nowhere, that would be, that would be a, a first. That was the most perfect place to be. I just didn't see the, as anybody listening who's had the misfortune and the terror of considering taking their life, suicidal ideation as it's known in the trade, as it ... They will probably concur with me that there comes a moment where you just start saying to yourself, "What's the point?" It's a strange phrase because, you know, you could say, anyone could say it at any point, but there's some moments when, when you say it, it seems so truthful. There is simply no point in anything around oneself. And that's how it seems. Uh, anyway, so I got in the car and drove to the south coast to, to Dover, I think it was, or it may, no, Folkestone. And got on a, a, a, a ferry to Zeebrugge in, in Belgium, and then ended up in Bruges. In Bruges, like, uh, (laughs) like Colin Farrell, Brendan. And, um, I, uh, then wandered a little further east into Holland and then into Germany and Hannover and Hamburg.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett48:44

        But you didn't tell anybody you were, you were going?

    18. SFStephen Fry48:45

        No. No. And this was '93 or so. There was no worldwide web as such. There was just beginning to happen. Tim Berners-Lee in Switzerland was beginning to develop the w- the, the worldwide web. But there were these things, these, these things called commercial online servers like CompuServe and America Online rather than direct kind of internet connections. And I had been connected to those for, for some time, and I'd taken my computer with me, I guess. So I was in a hotel in Hamburg, and then I got a message from my friend Hugh, who said, "Old fellow, (laughs) you must come home. (laughs) Um, be in touch at least." And so I kind of sent him an email on this CompuServe thing, and I agreed that, uh, it was nonsense. I had this i- in my head this idea that I would go up from Hamburg and Hannover up-... Schleswig-Holstein, which is the border with Denmark, and go up into Denmark. And somehow, in the north of Denmark, I would sit on a rock, in a thick, white pullover, with a pipe clenched between my teeth, writing impossible poetry and teaching English to, to, to Danes and be forgotten, you know, and just live the rest of my life there. A total fantasy. Um, but no, Hugh, Hugh said, "Come on. It's fine. Come home. We really want to see you. Everyone wants to." Uh, and so I, I drove back overnight to, to Amsterdam, and my father had, had got a flight to Schiphol. And we, we met in a hotel in, in Schiphol and, um, then got a flight, a little, little airplane back to, to Southend.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett50:25

        What did you say to your father that day in Amsterdam when you met him?

    20. SFStephen Fry50:28

        I said, "You, you, you've spent your life getting me out of terrible and embarrassing holes, and this is probably the worst of them." He said, "No, it isn't. It's fine. It's all okay." And he was just

11. 50:38 – 59:36

    Manic depression

    1. SFStephen Fry50:38

       wonderful.

    2. SBSteven Bartlett50:39

       I watched a news report of your, um, absence.

    3. SFStephen Fry50:42

       Yeah. Really?

    4. SBSteven Bartlett50:43

       Yeah, I watched it upstairs before we had this conversation of the, I think it was maybe BBC News or one of the big stations reporting that.

    5. SFStephen Fry50:50

       Mm-hmm.

    6. SBSteven Bartlett50:51

       You had, uh, you, you were basically missing.

    7. SFStephen Fry50:53

       Yeah.

    8. SBSteven Bartlett50:54

       They had a big picture of you on the screen and saying that you had, you know... The way that they'd framed it, obviously, is they said, "You did this play." They showed some of the headlines, some of the reviews, and they said, "He's, Stephen Fry's vanished."

    9. SFStephen Fry51:04

       Oh. Oh my God.

    10. SBSteven Bartlett51:04

        Um-

    11. SFStephen Fry51:05

        Oh, God.

    12. SBSteven Bartlett51:05

        ... and everyone was very...

    13. SFStephen Fry51:06

        Of course, I never saw any of that. I did see a photograph someone sent me years later of police on the roof of my house in Norfolk, which was slightly disturbing, looking for signs of me-

    14. SBSteven Bartlett51:16

        Right.

    15. SFStephen Fry51:16

        ... and obviously feeling the worst. Oh, it was a strange event, but in some ways it was, um, a cleansing or a, a necessary step, I suppose, uh, because as a result of it, I went to see psychiatrists and started to try and work out why, why my mind was taking me into such impossible, dark places or, um, you know, when I had so much to be thankful for. I mean, what the hell, you know? I, I had enough money, I was well-regarded in my profession, and, uh, uh, um, why, why should I have come to such a crisis just because someone didn't like my performance in that play? It's not really good enough, um, a- and I'm not that hypersensitive. Um, so, I, that started what I suppose we have to call my journey into my mental health and, um, and a few years later, I can't remember when, quite a few years later, probably about eight or nine if not 10 years later, I made a program on BBC2, two, two, uh, episodes I think it was, called The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, uh, in which I tried to explore this, this peculiarity of this darkness that can shroud a mind so completely, but also that is part of a, of an illness that I hadn't really understood. I'd heard the phrase manic depression, and I'd never really heard the word manic. Um, manic depression is, is two illnesses, depression, which is a, a dark, depressed, lowered, as in depressed state, and mania is, is an elevated state of energy and, and full of, full of bounce and vigor and, and a desire to communicate with people. And depression is the exact opposite. You just want to lie in bed and pull the duvet over your head and never speak to anybody. Whereas when you're in a manic state, you're always on the phone boring people. So, there are two poles, and hence it's also known bipolar, there's the, the one pole of, of, of mania, hypomania, and the other pole of a, of a depressed state. And so I wanted to find out more about it, and that's when I went back to school and discovered that the psychiatrist when I was a boy had written Bipolar? And I discovered that so many people lived with this problem, and I also discovered something quite extraordinary because I asked everyone I spoke to, I, I did a little button with my finger, I said, "I'm drawing a button on this table with my finger. If you press this button, you will never get a depressed episode again, one of those awful, terrible depressed episodes. But nor will you get a manic episode, one of those heightened, elevated, jubilant episodes. Um, do you wanna press the button?" And almost none of them wanted to press the button. Uh, and, and it, it reminded me of a thing that WH Auden, the poet, had written about, "Don't take my devils away, or my angels will fly away too." And, and I don't know whether that's a true thing, but it's a fear that we have inside us, that even an illness like, like manic depression and how serious it can be is part of us and, and gives us a, a secret power, gives us something extra. Um, it's dangerous because, because it is, um, highly, the word doctors use is, is morbidity. In, in other words, you know, pe- people, especially if it's undiagnosed, if you start finding that you're crashing in moods and becoming miserable and, and everyone's finding you a pain in the ass, or you're absolutely wild and full of crazy plans and, you know, buying things, you know, going on shopping sprees or being sexually exhibitionist or inappropriate and people find that even more annoying. Um, a- and if you don't know that it's actually an illness, then you just mask it with alcohol and, and, and, uh, narcotics of one kind or another, and they mask it pretty successfully but they have their own problems, to say the least, and people can then slide down and leave their families, their families can no longer tolerate their, their substance abuse, for example, and they, they end up on the streets. And then there's a lot of discovery for them to know that they first have to get off the substances that, that have been masking the problem and then to face the problem, and, and it's a really, as we know now, a huge endemic problem it seems in, in our culture and country. Amongst young people it's expressed with a rash of self-harm that is, is just so, so upsetting to see.... children are, are, are hurting themselves. And, and, and if you ask them why they do it, it's, it's always the same answer. Is, it's to dis- to displace the other pain inside them, is because the pain in there is worse. So you do that to take away from it. And that, for a child, is, is just heartbreaking to imagine.

    16. SBSteven Bartlett56:09

        Post-diagnosis of-

    17. SFStephen Fry56:10

        Hmm.

    18. SBSteven Bartlett56:10

        ... um, manic, manic-depression, what were you advised to do and what did you do to make life better with the understanding now and the awareness that you had this condition?

    19. SFStephen Fry56:23

        Well, firstly, I went on a sort of, uh, exploratory journey of, of medication. Um, my psychiatrist tried me on a number of things. Um, sodium valproate, which has since become somewhat of a, somewhat of a disgraced pharmaceutical, particularly when, when it's being given to people with, um, various forms of epilepsy. Um, and then lithium, and I was on lithium for, for quite a number of years. And, and then slowly I became aware of some of the kind of folk wisdom that has been around in our species for a very long time, but which was initially very irritating. I'll give you an example (laughs) . Um, there are certain kinds of people who, if they hear someone's depressed, say, "Well, go, go walk it off. You know, just go for a nice walk." And you think, "Hang on. This is an illness, just saying, 'Go and walk it off.'" And yet, once you've confronted it and once you've tried to control it, once you've understood what it is, uh, a, a chronic condition, i.e. a bit like asthma or, or diabetes, something that's with you and that may not go away and may come back again and isn't necessarily under your control, you then do discover that there are therapies in life like exercise, gardening, making music, knitting. I mean, it doesn't almost matter what it is. It is like, as I say, a folk wisdom of taking yourself out of yourself and also believing in a future. It's incredibly important. The first thing I did, I think, that was a breakthrough for me was that I lost some weight. I mean, I'm always fighting weight, but I was really pretty, pretty big back then, and I managed to lose about four stone. Now, it's not that losing four stone isn't itself a vast achievement, but it tells me that I can control some part of myself. My physical body is not, is not a rogue that will look, just do whatever it wants to do. I can say, "No, I'm going to make you a bit sleeker." And if I can do that with my body, maybe I can do things with my mind. Maybe I am, you know, captain of my soul, master of my destiny, and all, all of that. So yes, I started walking every morning, uh, you know, when I was in London, go round Regents Park and listen to audiobooks. Uh, just choose all kinds of books that either I hadn't read for years or I'd always meant to read, you know, whether it was Dostoevsky or Agatha Christie. It wasn't about, uh, high literature necessarily. It was about just having a story in my head and walking and walking and looking and saying, "Wow, I did seven miles this morning. That's amazing." You feel you're doing something. So it's really been a slow process of allowing myself, I suppose, to, to, to be who I am and not to fight for my place at the table. I, I suppose I've accepted that, um, through immense good fortune, I am where I am. I don't need to say yes to everything that I'm asked to do. I don't owe it to the, you know, to, to myself to, to have to work all the time. Um, and so I am sometimes capable of saying, looking to myself in the mirror and saying, "You? You're quite happy today, aren't you, Stephen?" And then I'll go, "No, don't say that."

    20. SBSteven Bartlett59:34

        (laughs)

    21. SFStephen Fry59:34

        "It's the worst thing you could say."

12. 59:36 – 1:06:06

    Your relationship with social media

    1. SBSteven Bartlett59:36

       You've got almost 13 million followers on Twitter.

    2. SFStephen Fry59:38

       Hmm.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett59:39

       What's your relationship been with social media? Because, you know-

    4. SFStephen Fry59:42

       Oh ho, up and down.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett59:44

       I mean, Twitter really is a cesspool at the best of times-

    6. SFStephen Fry59:46

       Mmm.

    7. SBSteven Bartlett59:46

       ... of just negativity and abuse and trolls. So reflecting on the, you know, the experience you had when you were 37 with that critical feedback, I mean, Twitter is not, not a great place to be if you want-

    8. SFStephen Fry59:57

       No, indeed it isn't.

    9. SBSteven Bartlett59:58

       ... anything.

    10. SFStephen Fry59:59

        I mean, it is supportive too. I mean, uh, uh, uh, I, I've learned how to use it in a way that is n- not likely ever to upset me anymore. There was a time when I was fully engaged with it, and, you know, you call it a cesspool, and, and I've used i- similar images. In the early days, it was like a lovely swimming hole in the, in a, in a, in a, in a, in a glade in a, in a lovely wood somewhere, where people who, of goodwill and from, from around would swim about, and you'd bump into them and go, "Hi, how are you?" And you'd just chat, and then suddenly you'd notice, "Oh, there's a turd floating on this."

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:31

        (laughs)

    12. SFStephen Fry1:00:31

        "What the hell's that doing there?" And then suddenly there'd be a bit of broken glass when you put your foot down, and, or an old rusty pram or something, and you realize that it had become, as you say, a kind of cesspool. And, and that's a terrible shame. It's immensely useful to have that many followers because it means, you know, I can satisfy a few publicity requirements with one stroke of the pen, as it were, just by, by tweeting about them, and it will reach a bigger audience than if I spend four hours doing a profile with a journalist who-

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:02

        Mm-hmm.

    14. SFStephen Fry1:01:02

        ... who will always want to get under my skin and ask annoying questions.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:06

        Like me.

    16. SFStephen Fry1:01:07

        So it's a lazy good publicity, uh, tool. Um, I'm, I'm slightly worried, uh, that, that... I don't know, that I may have to leave it if Elon Musk takes over. I'm not-

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:01:19

        Really?

    18. SFStephen Fry1:01:19

        ... sure that I want to be involved in his Twitter. It doesn't sound like a nice, happy place. Um, uh, I mean, I'll consider. I might just simply stop using it in any other way except to post things for charities or, or work that, that, you know, but rather than engaging with people. I just... I'm not sure I want to see some of the tweets that float up from the kind of people that (laughs) Musk encourages. I mean, I, I may be wrong. It, it, it... And it's not that I want it to be a left-wing thing, not a right-wing thing. I mean, I'm fully, um, uh, of course aware that it should reflect society, uh, uh, as much as possible. But, uh, um...Do you know what I've wanted to do (laughs) in a s- sort of way, is go on one of those... Doesn't Piers Morgan do something, is it GB News he does or one of those things?

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:06

        Yes. Yeah.

    20. SFStephen Fry1:02:06

        Um, and h- h- he s- I've sort of wanted to go on there, you'll have to hold your ears now, (laughs) sort of want to go, "Hello, how are, how are you, you old cunt?"

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:13

        (laughs)

    22. SFStephen Fry1:02:13

        "It's fucking great to see you, you cunty, cunty cunt, cunt," and him to go, "Sorry, you can't say that." "Oh, I thought this was the home of free speech?"

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:20

        (laughs)

    24. SFStephen Fry1:02:21

        "Isn't it? I thought, I thought this was the fucking home of cunting and free speech."

    25. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:25

        (laughs)

    26. SFStephen Fry1:02:25

        "But it isn't. Oh, so free speech is negotiable. You, there are bits that you can't say and bits that you can," you know, 'cause that's, that's the point. I mean, free speech is of course important, but it's not, it's not the endpoint. The endpoint is human beings living together in peace and harmony and happiness as much as possible, without war and violence and envy and resentment and bitterness and, or starvation and poverty and all those sort of things.

    27. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:54

        Mm-hmm.

    28. SFStephen Fry1:02:54

        That, that's the endpoint. A- and it's probable that that endpoint is better a- arrived at if we live in a society where you're free to speak and share ideas and think freely and you're not told what to say and... So in that sense, free speech is very much one of the key things on the way to it. But for some people, free speech has become the endpoint.

    29. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:15

        Mm-hmm.

    30. SFStephen Fry1:03:16

        "I want to live in a society where I can say anything. Doesn't matter if people are starving (laughs) and that the gap between rich and poor is wider than it's ever been. Uh, the only thing that matters is I can say what I want." Well, that's, that d- I just don't think that's what John Stuart Mill and all the (laughs) original figures who wrote on liberty and free speech, I don't think that's quite what they meant, and I don't think it's what I see as the, the, you know, the be all and end all. But, um, so, (sighs) you know, I'm worried that, uh, there will be a rise in the kinds of anti, you know, kind of racist and transphobic and, and indeed anti-feminist on the other side and all kinds of other nastiness will prevail, and Musk will go, "Yeah, that's, that's what we call free speech. I'm a free speech absolutist," he calls himself.
13. 1:06:06 – 1:15:22

    Depressive lows

    1. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:06

       traumas, these, you know, the ways that I react to a certain thing, my triggers, maybe they'll never be cured.

    2. SFStephen Fry1:06:10

       Mm-hmm.

    3. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:11

       Um, and as I read through your story, even up until 10 years ago, I could see that you were still having moments of real lows.

    4. SFStephen Fry1:06:19

       Yeah.

    5. SBSteven Bartlett1:06:19

       Real depressive lows. Uh, you know, I listened to, uh, I think a podcast episode you did where you said when you were 55, uh, it was your, I believe your third suicide attempt in your life.

    6. SFStephen Fry1:06:28

       Yes, very true. That's right. Yeah. You know, no, I think, I mean, it is in that sense what doctors call chronic, like asthma. You, you can, you know, have an inhaler on you and usually be pretty sort of safe and you know what you're allergic to, what triggers an asthma attack. But you never stop being an asthmatic. And the day could come when you least expect it when, of course, it's always the day you've forgotten your inhaler, where suddenly, you just get this enormous attack and you can barely breathe, and it might have been 10 years since you last had such one. I'm sure anyone listening who has lived with asthma will know, know what I mean. And, and it's a bit like that with, with, with, uh, you know, you, you've, you, at your peril do you think you've conquered it. You, you are living with it and coping with it and managing it, and most of the time one, one manages it, but sometimes you, you hear it, the, the, the, the, you know, the, the hoofbeats, uh, back in the, uh, in your brain of, of the coming storm, and you do everything you can to avoid it. And tell friends now, I mean, that's, it's so much easier said than done. I, I, (laughs) I have a, a theory, I call it my genital wart theory, is we, we all say how important friends are. "Gosh, we need friends. Friends are the people you can say anything to, aren't they?" But actually, they're not. If you had a genital wart, um, you wouldn't show it to your best friend. You'd say, "Oh, oh, Tom, here, h- have a look at (laughs) my plum feet."

    7. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:54

       (laughs)

    8. SFStephen Fry1:07:54

       They would go, "Shut up." Similarly, you wouldn't show it to your mother, you know, or to your sister (laughs) , you know?

    9. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:00

       Mm-hmm.

    10. SFStephen Fry1:08:00

        And that's family. But you show it to a stranger, a doctor...... so can you look at this and tell me if it's normal or all right? And they go, "Oh, that's fine. Don't worry."

    11. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:07

        Mm-hmm.

    12. SFStephen Fry1:08:07

        And you feel okay. So if that's true of some little physical part of yourself, it's also true of the, the mental part of yourself that although you have family and friends who are supposed to be there for you, it's actually very difficult, even though you know it's the right thing to do, to share with them what you're thinking.

    13. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:23

        (sniffs)

    14. SFStephen Fry1:08:23

        It's very hard. And they'd be upset. Nearly always when, when you have a crisis, if it, it gets as far as suicide obviously even more so, but any... Th- they say, "Why didn't you come and tell me?" They're actually angry with you.

    15. SBSteven Bartlett1:08:35

        Mm-hmm.

    16. SFStephen Fry1:08:35

        "You know I'm there for you. Why didn't you come?" Well, because I was a general water in my mind as it were, and, and I... You just feel... And you have to try and overcome that. But yes, it, it... I have to be worried it won't necessarily go away. It's- it's, um... Uh, the- the other thing I often say is it's, it's like the weather and, and, and, um, the weather is real, (laughs) you know? You can't ever say, "So I'm going out. It's not really snowing and, and it's not a blizzard outside, I'm gonna wear a T-shirt- T- T-shirt." Y- you have to accept that the weather is real, but you also have to accept that you didn't cause it. You... I didn't make it snow, it's, it... And, and nor do you have to, uh, sort of welter in the problem of thinking, "Well, that's it. It's snowing now, gonna snow for the rest of my life. It's always gonna be cold." It will actually pass. Again, nothing to do with you. You can't make it pass.

    17. SBSteven Bartlett1:09:28

        (sniffs)

    18. SFStephen Fry1:09:28

        And it's... Those are the storms in your head. The mistake is not to think it's real. "Ah, I'm just imagining it." No, it's really raining in your head. It is. "Oh, what did I do to make it do this?" You didn't make it rain. It's not your fault. And, "Oh, it'll never go now." It will. The sun will come out. You don't know when. It's not under your control. Those are three things. They're not absolutely hooray, but they're just enough if you cling on to them to make you realize sort of what's going on, that it's out of your control, that it's real, and that it will pass.

    19. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:01

        And what is the mind... You talked about the hooves of the horse coming.

    20. SFStephen Fry1:10:04

        Mm-hmm.

    21. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:05

        Is there, is there words associated with, with those moments? Is it... 'Cause you said earlier on about what's the point-

    22. SFStephen Fry1:10:10

        Yes.

    23. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:10

        ... in one of the narratives

    24. NANarrator1:10:11

        That's fine.

    25. SFStephen Fry1:10:11

        That, that is often the one, what is the point? And it's also just a... It's like... I mean, all, all of us who, who had it and I'm sure many of the people listening will have different, you know, metaphors and comparisons. It's l- it is like something being sucked out of your sort of energy center of it and, and that you feel drained and you're convinced your face has gone white. And sometimes you look in the mirror and it has gone white. There has been a physical response to it. You're utterly white. And people who love you and know you well see it in your eyes straightaway. So, so my husband will say, "Whoa, what's the matter?" And I'll go, "I don't know. I don't know. I'm just gonna go and lie down. I just don't know." And he'll s- he would have seen it instantly. And I look at them, myself in the mirror and think, "What, what is he seeing?" It is a common thing. And I noticed this during the, um, during the, uh, the documentary. Uh, h- if you take a magazine and, you know, cover half your face and look at your right eye and then cover the other half and look at your left eye or even take a photograph with, uh, in that way and then look, it- it's amazing how I found people with... who've had mental health histories that have not been happy have a m- often have a more extreme difference in their left and right eye than if you look at my left and right eye. One is rather cold and calculating and one is warmer and friendlier.

    26. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:32

        (laughs)

    27. SFStephen Fry1:11:33

        That's usual with people, I think. I don't know any empirical science behind it, but I did notice that almost everybody I interviewed had an extreme version of that. And I don't know what that means or whether it's anyone's ever (laughs) -

    28. SBSteven Bartlett1:11:48

        Interesting.

    29. SFStephen Fry1:11:48

        ... done any research onto it. But there are, you know, there are signs and signals that come. Um, uh, it's, you know, like some people get. I get itchy under the chin when I'm gonna have an asthma attack, for example, unmistakably itchy under the chin. But with, with mania, which is often worse. I mean, I interviewed someone who... With mania, you want to concentrate, you want new projects, you've got amazing ideas in your head, you're risk-taking and entrepreneurial and grandiose. Um, and, and I interviewed someone in America who, who's... Uh, their... I interviewed the wife. The, the, the, the husband, uh, sadly did take his own life. And so I was talking about life with him and he, she said... "It's a terrible thing to say," she said, "but I was always happier when he was depressed than when he was manic." When, when he's depressed, he's just, you know, lying curled up in a ball. Obviously, I didn't realize he was gonna take his life to go that far. That... But when someone's manic, they are just out of control. They are so embarrassing. They will do such weird things. And she said, she said, "You'll laugh, but it was awful at the time." He had a car, a nice car. It's like, um, one of the original Mustangs or something, and he took it apart piece by piece on a large piece of cloth in his garage, as an American would say. And each piece, he, you know, he... The pencil or marker, he did a little mark for where that piece goes and he wrote what the name of the piece was. So the whole thing... And he started chroming all the bright work and making it all perfect and the, all the engine parts were out. And then he had a change of state.

    30. SBSteven Bartlett1:13:22

        Mm-hmm.
14. 1:15:22 – 1:18:15

    Why have you been successful

    1. SFStephen Fry1:15:22

    2. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:22

       You've, you've accomplished so many unbelievable things in your career in spite of all of these struggles-

    3. SFStephen Fry1:15:27

       Mm-hmm.

    4. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:28

       ... that we've t- talked about. Um, the list is actually too long for me to, to even... I just wouldn't know where to start, um, as I look down onto this little iPad in front of me at all of the milestones, the, the books, the, the roles you've played, the, the scripts you've written, et cetera. Why, why and how? Why and how you? You know-

    5. SFStephen Fry1:15:48

       (sighs)

    6. SBSteven Bartlett1:15:49

       I know this here, it's always a difficult question because it, it requires us to abandon humility for a second potentially and, and say something nice about oneself. But, why, why you?

    7. SFStephen Fry1:15:59

       I think the first reason, and it would be the same if you spoke to a certain kind of musician, is because I write, and, and I have always written. Since I was a little boy, I used to write stories. And when I then was at Cambridge and there was this thing of comedy, it was natural, as with Hugh and on my own, to write monologues and sketches to perform, and because I'd written them, I w- I sort of wrote them for myself to perform. But the writing was at the bottom of it all, um, and then acting jobs on their own came along, which I didn't write, or other people wrote, or I could just sort of add bits of writing to. But I was always a writer, and if you look at musicians, you know, the reason we venerate Bowie and Elton John and, you know, Leonard Cohen or whoever it is, they write their music. It doesn't matter how fantastic their voices are. Yes, we love Nat King Cole or someone who has just a beautiful voice, but the pantheon of great artists are those who create their own work by... They write it. They write the songs. They last forever if you write the song, Paul McCartney or whatever. You know, I mean, you, you should (laughs) just think, even something like when you see that Postcode Lottery and that Who's That Knocking At My Door, and you think, "That's..." (laughs) Paul McCartney, when he wrote that, cannot have been thinking...

Episode duration: 1:36:55