Kingdom A quick chat with Stephen Fry

Stephen Fry, star of Kingdom, talks about his best friend, Kingdom, his big weight loss and his favourite telly...

What made you want to do Kingdom in the first place?
"It harks back to memories of doing Jeeves and Wooster and one’s childhood. There’s something quite terrible about hearing the music for Songs of Praise or the Antiques Roadshow and getting that lead feeling in your tummy that says school or work tomorrow. You know then that the weekend can’t be eked out much more, so you want a pleasant, enjoyable television experience that will make you feel better. Sunday night television is sometimes a way of looking at Britain through rose-tinted glasses."

So you like the values that the series represents?
"It seemed like a comfortable thing, like putting on a pair of old slippers. There’s plenty of scope for other programmes where you see livers being pulled out of dead bodies. I just thought with this character, the whole point of him was that kindness was his first response."

What about yourself? We are going to be seeing a lot less of you it seems...
"Yes! I have lost five and a half stone. I was 21st in December last year, which is too heavy even for a man of my height (6ft 5in). I’m now 15st 12lb."

Have you tried to lose weight before?
"Yes, The mistake I made in the past was to go straight into a big diet, but I went into it this time slowly. I thought, 'I’m not going to diet. All I’ll do for a month is cut out potatoes, sugar and bread.' And quite a lot of weight rolled off and I just added more things to the list of things I wasn’t going to have."

You have been filming a new BBC wildlife show about endangered species. Does this mean you have missed TV?
No. With my laptop I can enjoy viewing even when I am in the bush. I have watched Midsomer Murders in the middle of the jungle. You can’t do better than that, can you? I love a good whodunit – Inspector Lynley and things like that. It’s gentle, light tosh. The British do this sort of thing better than anybody."

Do you still see much of your former comedy partner Hugh Laurie?
"He’s my best friend in the world. But the fact is, House is nine months of his life every year. I’ve seen his schedule when I’ve stayed with him in LA and he doesn’t have time for anything else. We joke about whether I should be in House as an English doctor even nastier, crueller and ruder than he is or be a better diagnostician than him, but be incredibly nice."

Is there much of you in Peter Kingdom?
"Not really. I think it’s absolutely necessary as an actor to be yourself, and to pare away those parts of yourself that are not like the character you are playing. And I am far less charming than Peter!"