Guest Author - Lauren Evans
In the new 6 part series 'Stephen Fry In America', our genial host travels around America in his traditional black cab, visiting places and people of interest. His journey begins, rather appropriately, in New England, where Stephen enjoys a spot of lobster trancing in Maine and some gentle mockery of the long aahs of the local accent. The locals get slightly confused by Stephen's cab, mistaking him for a full-time English cabbie with an extremely plummy accent. He swings by Vermont, and gets the lovely people at Ben & Jerry's to make him his own signature ice-cream, called Even Stephen (they love the puns don't they?). Stephen deftly mixes historical and political facts with musings on US culture and meetings with interesting characters. Americans love Stephen, he has all of Louis Theroux' charm, but unlike the disingenuous Theroux, he has a very real interest in connecting with his interviewees. Racing through Salem for Samhain celebrations with the local witches, to Harvard, to meeting the creator of Wikipedia, to Washington DC, Fry shows how all the very different, often contradictory, facets of America fit together to make the whole, without once resorting to tired Bush-bashing journalistic cliché.
The much overused cliché of the alcoholic journalist is given a different spin in Alistair Campbell's 'Cracking Up', a one-off documentary about Tony Blair's right-hand man before he achieved political fame. As an obsessive, perfectionist journalist, Alistair Campbell abused alcohol to deal with stress. In the documentary, he describes his journey from being just 'one of the lads', holding drinking competitions with colleagues and staying up late, to his subsequent mental breakdown and diagnosis of clinical depression. Alistair talks to his wife Fiona, friends and key figures involved in the chain of events that, in 1986, led to his arrest and admission to hospital for treatment. It is refreshing to see someone in the public eye so willing to admit how they have been, and continue to be, affected by not only depression, but also by the terrifying symptoms of a breakdown, including hearing voices that don't exist and feeling persecuted by advertising hoardings and signs. While 'Cracking Up' is certainly not the most cheery programming, it will almost certainly serve it's intended purpose - to reduce the stigma of mental illness. Alistair Campbell admits that he will never truly be 'over' his mental illness, but proves that it is possible to use strategies for managing depression and to function within your family and at work – indeed, at the highest level of British politics. Inspiring stuff, presented by a thoroughly affable chap.
