I have just returned from a tour of Australia and New Zealand, on whose citizens I inflicted An Evening With Stephen Fry. I first ‘played’ Australia in 1981. The Cambridge Footlights Revue that Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, Tony Slattery, Paul Shearer, Penny Dwyer and I had put on in Edinburgh attracted the attention of an Australian impresario called Michael Edgley. Would we be interested in taking our show around his country? Tony had another year of university to go and in the end Hugh and Emma joined up with the previous year’s Footlighters, Robert Bathurst and Martin Bergman. That summer Ian Botham had sensationally and all but single-handedly wrested the Ashes urn from the Australians’ grasp, so we called our show – something of a red rag to a bull – Botham, the Musical.
My first stop this year, as in 1981, was western Australia’s capital, Perth. The citizens – Perthians? Perthonalities? – like to tell you that theirs is the remotest capital in the world, standing as it does more than 1,300 miles from the nearest major city, Adelaide. The proper response to this is tactfully to bark out from behind your hand, as if masking a cough, ‘Honolulu’, which they will tell you doesn’t count. I have yet to understand why not. When we arrived here 43 years ago with Botham, the Musical we were sent down to the WACA, Perth’s legendary cricket ground, to do some publicity to whip up interest. What we had not expected was to be bowled at by Terry Alderman and Dennis Lillee. The former was charming and shook our hands, but the latter paced up and down, moustache bristling in outrage. ‘I’ll give them Botham, the fucking Musical,’ he muttered. We stood trembling in the nets. Of course, it had all been an act and he floated six balls to me like thistledown.
On the flight over the Nullarbor desert, the pilot told us to look down at what he called ‘the Gaba’ – not the Gabba cricket ground in Brisbane, but the Great Australian Bugger All. It is true that much of the land is baked and featureless. Adelaide, however, is a jewel. The path along the Torrens river is just about my favourite urban walk anywhere in the world. The signs that warn you to run away from attacking pelicans are something of a concern, however.
A lunch as the guest of the Adelaide Club was arranged by my friend the linguist Professor Ghil’ad Zuckermann, who does heroic work rescuing and revitalising threatened Aboriginal languages. Ghil’ad, a hyperpolyglot, speaks better English than most, but he rates it as only the 13th in his most fluent list. As a boy he was also a maths prodigy. Some people.
Queensland next. When we were in Brisbane in 1981 the temperature reached 45ºC and a plastic Christmas tree melted in the town centre. The most notable addition these days is the presence of ibis that peck around the pavements like horribly mutated pigeons. They are not proud in their eating habits – Brisbanites call them bin chickens, dumpster divers, tip turkeys and worse – and their curved beaks spear and snatch at anything that might be edible, such as a visiting pom’s sandals.
On the flight to Canberra I found myself sitting next to Rory Stewart. It was 4 November. He astonished me by predicting with ironclad certainty that Kamala Harris was going to romp home to the presidency. ‘Really?’ ‘Absolutely. Guaranteed.’ For the next two days I told everyone who’d listen that I have it on the highest authority that Trump is doomed. I gather Rory has endured much public mockery since, so I shan’t hurl my own mud pies, but my reputation as a prognosticator, such as it was, has gone down with his.
In Melbourne I caught the running of the Melbourne Cup – ‘The Race That Stops a Nation’. Knight’s Choice at 90-1 by a nose. Raceday is a public holiday in Victoria, and Melbourne remains subdued until late afternoon, when the expensively dressed racegoers totter tipsily back towards town. In my hotel I watched local news items reporting crimes in the area. I couldn’t hear lines like ‘Victorian police were soon on the scene’ without picturing top-hatted constables wagging their truncheons.
Two nights in New Zealand’s compact capital to round off the tour. I got to know ‘Wundy Willington’ well when filming The Hobbit in 2011. The New Zealand accent is a constant source of delight – ‘pin’ for ‘pen’, ‘pun’ for ‘pin’, all that sort of thing. In a restaurant, if a waiter suggests oysters, don’t look at your Kiwi fellow diner and say ‘Shall we have six?’ or you might get slapped. I knew New Zealand had a strong rural identity, but when the airport PA announcement mentioned ‘the chicken counter’ it took me some time to work out what was meant.
On the final morning of the tour, I was up at 3.30 a.m. to go to the airport ‘chicken counter’ for the connecting flight home. Once aboard, I ordered a vodka and soda water. Ten years ago, a Qantas steward said in response to my ordering the same drink: ‘One skinny bitch coming up.’ I raised my eyebrows. ‘Well, that’s what they call it on the catwalk, darling,’ he explained. ‘Your maximum alcoholic bang for your minimum calorific buck.’ Back in London, I met Nigella Lawson for a drink and, thinking to try out my newfound cocktail knowledge, I ordered a skinny bitch. The barman prepared one, unfazed. Nigella was pleased to know such a simple drink had a name. Three weeks later, I bumped into her at a party. ‘I made such a fool of myself,’ she said. ‘I went into a bar and ordered a skinny slut.’ I was kind enough to make no reference to Sigmund Freud.
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