Stephen Fry's NZ show could be a right fry up

Stephen Fry - a man of many talents. Photo / Elephant Publicity

Stephen Fry is packing his bags for a quickfire December visit, the English comedian planning a one-off Auckland show at The Civic on December 2.

He's a man of many talents, so we thought you might need a bit of reminding about exactly what he's been up to over the years.

Movies
Fry's film career dates way back to the late-1980's with a role in comedy caper A Fish Called Wanda, while his 1997 portrayal of Oscar Wilde in Wilde earned him a Golden Globe nomination. Other notable appearances include The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, V For Vendetta, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and voicing the Cheshire Cat in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. Locally, he's best known for his appearance as Master of Lake-town in two out of three Hobbit films.

Television

Comedy, drama, quiz shows and documentaries - Fry's done them all. He was in three seasons of Blackadder, four seasons of A Bit of Fry & Laurie, and a whopping 12 seasons of his incredibly popular comedy quiz show QI. He appeared in three seasons of legal drama Kingdom, has a recurring role on American drama Bones, and also abseiled down a cliff face for an episode of Bear Grylls' Wild Weekends. His award-winning documentaries include The Secret Life of the Manic Depressive, about his experience suffering bipolar, and Out There, about lesbian, bisexual gay and transgender people around the world. Most recently, he showed up in the latest season of 24, playing — who else? — the British PM.

Games

Yes, they're the calm, dulcet tones of Fry that greet you and guide you through the complex puzzle-solving Playstation platformer Little Big Planet, its two sequels and spin-off Little Big Planet Karting. He also appeared in the first four Harry Potter games, as well as playing Reaver in Fable II and III.

Stephen Fry plays humane solicitor Peter Kingdom in the TV1 series Kingdom.

Books

Fry has written three autobiographies, four novels and several non-fiction works — including a guide to writing poetry. He pens a weekly technology column for The Guardian. He's also voiced all British audiobook versions of the Harry Potter series, and created the No. 1 audiobook series The Dongle of Donald Trefusis, about a man who gets messages from beyond the grave. He's so prolific on Twitter he practically invented it.

Stephen Fry as the Master of laketown in the 2nd instalment of the Hobbit films The Desolation of Smaug.

Stage

Yes, he's an accomplished stage veteran too, as both an actor and writer. His 1984 adaptation of Me and My Girl ran for eight years, and also had a part in The Common Pursuit with Rik Mayall in 1988. Controversially, he left three days into a 1995 play called Cell Mates, suffering stage fright which was later attributed to being bipolar. But he returned in 2012 with Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, which ended up on Broadway and earned Fry a Tony nomination. He also occasionally performs stand-up comedy.

Where does he find the time?