Sir Stephen Fry has been speaking about his appearance on The Assembly, where each guest is questioned by a panel made up entirely of autistic and neurodivergent interviewers
He wasn’t ready for the question he was asked!(Image: YouTube/ @Joe Marler Will See You Now)
Stephen Fry was left feeling awkward after an “eye-watering” question that he wasn’t prepared for as he took part in groundbreaking show The Assembly. Stephen is one of the big names interviewed for the second series, where autistic neurodivergent interviewees are free to ask any question they please. The unique programme, nominated for Best Factual Entertainment at the BAFTAs, is set to return to our screens in a couple of weeks.
There are no pre-agreed questions, no rehearsed answers and no clear sense of where conversations might lead and viewers will see Sir Stephen, fresh from his appearance on Celebrity Traitors, squirm after he agreed to be one of the names in the hotseat. He said he was left totally taken aback at the roundtable after being grilled on sexual preferences.
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The actor, who is married to comedian Elliott Spencer, has been openly gay for decades, and speaking ahead of the show’s return, he was asked if anything truly stumped him. He said: “I think the rather eye-watering curiosity as to my sexual preferences. Not sexuality, you understand – that was understood – but my preferences within that sexuality framework… well, I wasn’t expecting that!”
There was another moment that he admitted “embarrassed” him – when he got up to dance with the group during a musical performance. Asked how that made him feel, he joked: “As embarrassed, awkward and uncoordinated as I always feel when dancing.”
Speaking about how the interview was different to the usual media meet-ups he has experienced, the much loved star replied: “Well, the frankness, the openness, the genuine curiosity. These are not things one is used to in the normal run of journalistic inquisition.”
Asked who he would like to see deal with these unique interviews in future, Sir Stephen respinded that he’d like to “see the tables turned”. He said: “Someone who themselves asks questions for a living. So Graham Norton or Jonathan Ross perhaps?”
Comparing it to the intense pressure of his recent appearance on Celebrity Traitors, he believed the grilling from The Assembly interviewees was actually trickier than a roundtable on the castle-based reality show.
“Oh I think The Assembly just pips it,” he remarked. “The Traitors roundtable sees the possibility of mistakenly naysaying, or of being punished, but within a game. The Assembly puts one under a microscope for real.”
Known for his comedy turns with Hugh Laurie and regular appearances in the Blackadder series before spending 13 years as host of panel show QI, is his shift to reality shows in recent years, as well as spy drama The Interrogator, a fresh challenge he has actively sought out.
“No, it just seems to have turned out that way,” he admitted. “I first thought up The Interrogator and wrote the original pilot for it 11 years ago in fact. That’s one hell of an incubation period, isn’t it!
“As Hamlet observed, things tend to come along in clumps. Though he put it better: ‘They come not in single spies, but in battalions.’ He was talking of sorrows, but it’s true of TV projects too…”
The Assembly returns on Wednesday, April 8, at 10.05pm and Friday, April 10, at 10pm on STV and STV Player, as well as ITV1 and ITVX.
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