Anderson's interviewing seems tense and full of anxiety. I don't think I could watch his show. Although, I'd love to see him interview Miriam Margolyes. I bet she'd set him straight.
Stephen Fry has a history of stage fright and he has a bipolar disorder. He famously left a West End production in 1995 due to bad reviews. Him shaking is a coping mechanism because Clive can be very mean to his guests.
I don't know what kind of penance or acts of contrition Stephen had to go through post-flight to Bruges, but what I do know is that as far as Clive Anderson was concerned, all of that had been discussed on his show a year before. So Clive bringing it up right at the top of this interview basically pushes him from acerbic host to mean human.
I think Stephen had said a few unkind words about Clive a few weeks before this interview, so Clive was getting a kick into Stephen as a way of saying piss off to Stephen.
That was Clive's style. He was not the fawning, lick lick, slop slop interviewer such as Michael Parkinson was. Clive was more terse, tough, and rude when needed to be. Stephen had said a few bad things about Clive in the past, so there was tension there too. Where most talk show hosts ass kiss their guests, Clive usually booted them up the ass rather than ass kiss.
@@chrish12345 Clive Anderson's talk show ran from 1989 until 1999, and he was the original host of Whose Line Is It Anyway from 1988 to 1998 - so "one trick pony" is unfair.
@@johnking5174 that was basically what he did, invite people on and then insult them with this underhand 'quick wit' - ultimately that was why he was there and that was why he faded away - he lacked any kind of charisma.
This was such an awkward interview. Stephen is an endless wealth of knowledge and has such wisdom about him, yet Clive invites him here in a hapless attempt to cut him down like a flourishing tree. He would ask questions in hopes that Stephen would be come embarrassed or flustered, then immediately changed paths when it didn't yield results. I'd rather have one of the audience members interview Stephen to be honest.
Fry was miscast; he looks a bit like Wilde but his performance is too mild mannered and timid; he’s not a trained actor like Daniel day Lewis who should have played the role with the nuance it deserved. Fry is playing himself, his own persona: he’s not even trying to interpret the role in the way an actor should. Wilde, for all of his brilliance as a satirical writer, had a repulsive, self indulgent side and Fry's mild, appealing personality tries to distort this as something benevolent instead of destructive. It's a sham. Jude Law does an exceptional job as Bosie but he shouldn’t have had to carry the film on his own talent... he deserved a formidable costar... and that’s why the film is not regarded as a classic, because it didn't really hold Oscar up to be analysed as a flawed, provocative, self-destructive figure, just to idealise him (a vanity project on Fry's part, who wants to be identified with Wilde and has succeeded, if the OP comment is anything to go by). All the 'love that dare not speak its name' bollocks was in fact an excuse for Wilde and Bosie to go out and take advantage of vulnerable, underage, working class rent boys (which Wilde called 'feasting with panthers') and, once Wilde was sent down, his wife and children were the ones who lost everything. My final point is that Oscar Wilde's dramatic life was certainly worthy of a film biopic but not the kind of film that doesn't tell the truth.
While there's certainly a lot of truth in your comment, I sometimes think it's better to portray the life of someone we never knew or met in a more decent manner, just using what we know about that time and person for sure, like from letters, newspaper reports, trial papers... Because then we can all imagine that there was something more controversial or bad or shocking behind it all, and it well may have been, but we can use our own sense, imagination, knowledge, opinions and judgement to do so... It's only my view of course and not very well expressed, but I sometimes can't bear how films try to show the depth of scandals, extravagancies or emotional problems etc. of the portrayed people, because it's quite an individual thing and the makers of the film see these things in some way which may not be actually at all the way the person felt and thought nor the way in which the less well known things truly happened
