Stephen Fry Documentaries

Mark Lawson talks to Renaissance man Stephen Fry about his many talents, his mysterious disappearance from the cast of Cell Mates in 1995 and how he battles with his demons.

Actor, writer, director and presenter Stephen Fry reveals the things he considers his guiltiest pleasures. These include darts, romantic novels by Georgette Heyer, the work of Richard Wagner and TV game show Countdown. With the help of entertaining clips and personal recollections, the programme provides an amusing insight into the mind of one of Britain's favourite comedy performers.

Stephen Fry explores the world of manic depression, a mental illness which affects up to 4 million people in the UK, including himself. He sets out to uncover more about a misunderstood condition which drives those who have it from extreme highs to crippling lows. Stephen describes the impact on his own life and meets up with ordinary people and celebrities such as Robbie Williams, Carrie Fisher, Tony Slattery and Rick Stein to discuss what triggers it and why it often takes years to diagnose.

In the second of two programmes, Stephen reveals in detail for the first time how this illness overwhelmed him in the 1990s and caused him to attempt suicide, and also why he disappeared from a West End play. Since then, he has had to figure out ways of living with it.

Documentary to celebrate the great man's 50th birthday, with interviews from colleagues such as Emma Thompson and Richard Curtis.

Two-part documentary in which Stephen Fry investigates the world of HIV and AIDS today. On a night out in Doncaster - once crowned HIV Capital of the North - he chats to young people about current attitudes to HIV and risky sex. He also visits his first love from Cambridge who, having separated from Stephen, later found out he and his new partner were positive. And he meets an HIV-positive grandmother, and a 16-year-old girl who has lived with the virus all her life.

Two-part documentary in which Stephen Fry investigates the world of HIV and AIDS today. In this second part he explores the impact of modern treatments and visits Uganda to investigate why drugs are unavailable there. He also takes an HIV test himself, and wonders why so many others are reluctant to do the same. His conclusion is that, while things have improved medically, the situation seems worse than ever psychologically and socially.

Stephen Fry examines the story behind the first media entrepreneur, printing press inventor Johann Gutenberg, to find out why he did it and how, a story which involves both historical enquiry and hands-on craft and technology. Fry travels across Europe to find out how Gutenberg kept his development work secret, about the role of avaricious investors and unscrupulous competitors and why Gutenberg's approach started a cultural revolution. He then sets about building a copy of Gutenberg's press.

Recorded coverage of a parliamentary speech by the broadcaster Stephen Fry on the future of public service broadcasting, from Wednesday 7 May.

Stephen Fry explores his passion for controversial composer Richard Wagner. Can he salvage the music he loves from its dark association with Hitler's Nazi regime? His journey takes him to Germany, Switzerland and Russia as he pieces together the story of the composer's turbulent career. Along the way he plays Wagner's piano, meets the composer's descendants and eavesdrops on rehearsals for the legendary Bayreuth Festival, the annual extravaganza of Wagner's music held in a theatre designed by the composer himself.

A great English icon visited an Aussie one when Stephen Fry came to the Sydney Opera House to discuss travel, language, the three W's, Wilde, Waugh and Wodehouse.

Stephen Fry loves Louisiana. Four months after the BP oil spill, dubbed the worst ecological disaster in the history of America, Fry returns to the Deep South together with zoologist Mark Carwardine, to see what the impact has been on the people, the vast wetlands and the species that live there. What they find both surprises and divides the travelling duo.

15 years after they last appeared on television together, Stephen Fry & Hugh Laurie meet to discuss their friendship and careers.

Stephen Fry explores his passion for history's most controversial composer in an extended feature-length version of a film first broadcast in Spring 2010. Stephen is Jewish and lost family in the Holocaust - can he salvage Richard Wagner's music from its dark associations with Hitler and anti-semitism?