Folks usually invoke your title as somebody they’d like to affix them on the good banquet. Are you such a incredible visitor? hhhhssss
When folks say that, I normally reply: “Ah, you haven’t seen me eat.” It’s a really charming factor to listen to, a method folks get, I assume, to record qualities of their heroes or folks they admire and picture very kindly that I’m speaker or that I’m a wit of some type, and hope I’m pleasant. The record normally consists of Winston Churchill and Oscar Wilde and I all the time really feel extraordinarily unworthy, however I don’t wish to bore anyone with, you understand, the same old British modesty ritual. I’ll simply say that it’s an important honour and I definitely attempt once I’m at dinner events. Though, have you ever observed put up Covid, there appear to be fewer of them? Or maybe it’s simply that individuals have stopped inviting me.

“If nothing else works, a complete pig-headed unwillingness to look info within the face will see us by.” Was Melchett the godfather of Brexit? Shauny79
It’s a superb commentary by whoever put that query that the speech of Melchett’s, which I beloved saying, does so exactly match the angle to Brexit: “A complete pig-headed unwillingness to look info within the face.” Enjoying Melchett was one of many nice joys of my life. To be let free on such highly effective eccentricity and unpredictable barking insanity is a superb deal with for any actor.

Fry (second from left) as Normal Melchett in Blackadder Goes Forth. {Photograph}: Most Movie/Alamy

What’s your achilles heel in trivia quizzes? vastariner
Oh, common tradition and pop typically. I wouldn’t know one Kardashian from one other. I do know they exist, and I do know most of their names start with Ok, however I’m not being pretend ignorant, I genuinely simply don’t perceive. I don’t see why I ought to go to Wikipedia and browse up on the historical past of the Kardashian household. I do know it’s a phenomenon. And all phenomena are worthy of curiosity within the human story, I suppose. However there isn’t room for the whole lot. So I wouldn’t be good on Ok-pop or Ladies Aloud or indie or hip-hop. My husband is a superb hip-hop fan and has taught me to like and respect Kendrick Lamar. Eminem has real poet abilities and is sort of thrilling to hearken to, though I wouldn’t put it on as I’m going for a drive, I’ve to admit.

Did you actually win a big pile of Turkish Delight for being the brainiest boy at Cambridge College and figuring out all the most important phrases, while Hugh Laurie received a small truck for having the boggliest eyes in faculty? – as depicted within the Viz cartoon Fry’s Turkish Delight? TopTramp
Somebody did ship me a scan of it, and I used to be in fact concurrently thrilled, horrified and deeply honoured to be within the pages of that sensational journal. If prizes had been being given for the boggliest eyes, certainly Hugh would have received. I don’t keep in mind anybody else on the college with bogglier. Would I’ve been the brainiest boy at Cambridge College? The factor is, whenever you go to a spot like Cambridge, the primary individual you’d meet is somebody who speaks seven languages, then you definately flip round and there’s an individual who’s doing binomials and polynomials of their head. I can perceive all of the hatred and contempt for Oxbridge and these sorts of nice British establishments that had been as soon as so lauded and praised.

How are you dealing with getting outdated? Bustersmyboss
Have you learnt what? I slightly prefer it. Sure, there are leaks. Leaks and creaks. And, in fact, being a child boomer, it’s very fascinating as a result of we’re the demographic leaders and have been because the second we had been born, with sugary cereals and sweets marketed to us on tv. Then as we turned barely older, we turned yuppies. We had been the spending technology. Now, as child boomers, you begin getting commercials for folks utterly mysteriously making tomato sandwiches in conservatories speaking to the digital camera about their insurance coverage and funeral plans, stepping out of baths, lifting themselves out of electrical armchairs, mobility scooters and incontinence pads. There are extra adverts for us now than there are for youngsters. I used to be by no means cute, I’ve acquired higher wanting as I’ve acquired older. Not that I’m good wanting, but it surely fits me higher than youth did once I was a bit awkward, gawky and appeared older than my age. In order that was complicated and bizarre. Now I’ve kind of settled into my mid-60s they usually appear to swimsuit me fairly effectively.

With Hugh Laurie in Jeeves and Wooster. {Photograph}: Granada Television/Sportsphoto/Allstar

In case you’re so intelligent, why can’t you invent time journey or a treatment for most cancers? TurangaLeela2 and TopTramp
Who says that I haven’t, didn’t, wouldn’t, aren’t at this very second? No, you’re proper. Good heavens, I want I had been that intelligent. There are manufacturers of intelligent. There’s good fast. You have a look at somebody like Lee Mack and also you assume: “How does a mind function that quick?” You get different individuals who have a cleverness of verbal facility and discuss philosophy, historical past and poetry multi function go. After which there are others who’ve a sort of intelligence that’s a knowledge, an perception into human behaviour that’s nothing to do with schooling. How to deal with life: you don’t want schooling for that. Folks use the nice phrase: “Can’t sit the precise method on a rest room seat” to imply doesn’t have any widespread sense. However so there are such a lot of wildly completely different sorts of intelligence. I’m conscious that I’ve verbal facility and that I’ve reminiscence and I’m more than happy about these issues. If solely they helped in issues like a treatment for most cancers.

What would have occurred if it was Laurie and Fry, and your profession took the trail of Hugh’s and him yours? TurangaLeela2
I feel if I had his bodily skills for sport: tennis, cricket, soccer, rowing … I can’t even dive right into a swimming pool. If I may sing and play an instrument, I’d sit all day on the piano. However it’s a bit like a flatfooted platypus wanting up at an eagle and saying: “If I may fly, I’d do that. I’d try this.” Hugh’s life is sensible and he’s earned it and the respect and affection by which folks maintain him is so absolutely deserved. He’s an exquisite, sensible, variety, good, humorous, intelligent man, and brilliantly proficient. In some ways, his life is rather more admirable and enviable than mine. And but I wouldn’t swap. It loops again to your query about outdated age. One of many stuff you come to phrases with is that your life is your life, and all of the horrible errors, flawed phrases, regrets and I needs and why didn’t I? You do really assume: “Effectively, it was my life and I led it, and I wouldn’t actually have it some other method.”

The Inventor is launched in Vue cinemas and on digital platforms from 8 March

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