STEPHEN FRY IN AMERICA

(Pic” Stephen Fry)

New series starts on BBC Knowledge on July 3

British actor, director and writer Stephen Fry appears in Stephen Fry in America) which runs every Friday at 21h30 from July 3 on BBC Knowledge channel 251 on DStv.

Stephen Fry was very nearly an American. Just before he was born, his father was offered, but turned down, a job at Princeton University. The writer and actor explores the country which he might have called home and which has always fascinated him. Stephen hires a taxi and sets about visiting each and every one of the 50 US States, to experience for himself the variety of people and places that make up the country.

Starting in the north-east, Stephen explores the states that make up New England, before heading south to the nation's capital and ending up at the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, where Abraham Lincoln made his famous address.

He then heads to the American Deep South, joining coal miners deep underground in West Virginia and enjoys a bluegrass music-making session in Tennessee before celebrating Thanksgiving at an old plantation house in Georgia.

Journeying west to the Mississippi Delta, Stephen experiences Mardi Gras on the streets of New Orleans and visits the abandoned neighbourhoods destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. His journey also takes him on a tour through Angola Penitentiary, one of America’s most notorious prisons.

In the American mid-west, Stephen visits the Badlands of South Dakota before heading to the deluxe skiing resort of Aspen, Colorado, and then on through New Mexico and Arizona to the Pacific coastline, joining Big Foot believers in the Oregon redwood forests and visiting an edgy cabaret in Seattle.

Stephen’s epic journey culminates in the contrasting surroundings of America’s newest states as he embarks on an unsuccessful whale hunt in the Alaskan wilderness and goes swimming with sharks in the islands of Hawaii.

Delightfully presented with his ready wit and genuine enthusiasm, Stephen Fry In America is a charming exploration of a fascinatingly varied nation.