The actor Stephen Fry. Photo: AFP
Stephen Fry is a master storyteller in every medium - on stage, on the big screen, the small screen and in books.
The beloved British actor has lived a remarkable life of 67 years and counting. That life included jail time.
Yes, the man who became famous for starring in Black Adder alongside Rowan Atkinson and played his idol Oscar Wilde in the 1997 film Wilde served some time.
Those early, turbulent years before fame gave Fry enough content to fill up the first half of his live show An Evening with Stephen Fry. It will hit stages over three nights in New Zealand, on November 11 in Auckland and the following two nights in Wellington.
In an interview with Jim Mora for RNZ's Sunday Morning, Fry described "tormented, tortuous and absurd teenage [years] that involved being expelled from large numbers of schools, ending up in prison, how by the skin of my teeth I managed to get to university where I was lucky enough to meet two remarkable people..."
A shot from the 1997 film Wilde, directed by Brian Gilbert, with Stephen Fry playing Oscar Wilde. Photo: Samuelson Productions / Photo12 via AFP
Those people were Hugh Laurie and Emma Thompson, his first comedic collaborators. That serendipitous meeting gave him one of his first runs on the board of show business with the two-person act Fry and Laurie.
(Oh and, if you're curious about his earlier crime that landed him in prison, it was credit card fraud).
"I was lucky, very lucky because I became well-known slowly. I sort of leaked into the public consciousness rather than pop stars, reality stars, soap opera stars - they can become famous instantly at a young age and that is difficult."
Fry, who was on the Australian leg of his tour, described the show as interactive. The audience was invited to ask him questions about his life, which included his status as a softly-spoken gay icon.
Of course, audiences were curious to hear about his friendship with King Charles and what it was like to interview the late Apple founder Steve Jobs. But occasionally a question comes through about mental health, a passion of Fry's forged from his own struggles with depression.
"One of the things I would say about mental health is you have to hold two opposing thoughts. One is that it is incredibly serious. There are all kinds of real troubles if it is not diagnosed..."
This could lead to drug and alcohol abuse, exiting family life and community, self-harm and suicide, Fry continued.
"...but also you have to hold in your mind that it is possible to live a fulfilled happy and loving life and complete life with a mental health condition."
In a tribute to the role psychiatrists have played in Fry's life, he is backing a campaign to increase the number of medical students opting to pursue psychiatry.
Some of Fry's struggles were rooted in undiagnosed Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. An early understanding that he was gay and how society saw gay men at the time also contributed to his depression.
"It was a horror because I knew that gay people were despised and that they lived lives of shame and mockery and contempt and isolation and I saw that as being in my future in life."
It drove him to the library where he first read about Oscar Wilde, the poet and playwright. Wilde's bravery to live publicly as a gay man sustained Fry as a teenager, while in prison and through his early years in show business when he lived a celibate life.
"I realised I wasn't alone. There was hope."
