These days, actor-wit-presenter Stephen Fry seems too big to talk to. But back in 1988, a youthful Fry spoke to the Watford Observer’s Grelle White about his hectic career and more during a break from his role in The Common Pursuit at the Palace Theatre. Here’s what he had to say, from the Watford Observer of April 1, 1988:

“Stephen Fry is six foot four and a half inches tall and, oh yes, the half inch matters!

“‘It puts me in the Cambridge comedy fraternity with people like John Cleese,’ smiled Stephen as he gently wound down his towering figure onto a chair in the Watford Palace green room between matinee and evening peformances – and firmly denied any intention to use the time between shows to eat.

“‘Nerves, you know,’ admitted one of Britain’s coolest comics.

“He was ‘hugely’ enjoying doing ‘The Common Pursuit’ at Watford. It was a whole new experience. Except for university, where he acted in 30 plays in the first two years, live theatre is a rare art form for the actor-entertainer, who is almost certain to do for this generation of youth what Monty Python did for his.

“‘For me, it was Monty Python, for my father’s generation The Goons.’ Every age has its own kind of landmark according to Stephen, whose creative talent and output is enough to take your breath away.

“He lives from deadline to deadline – ‘It’s like living with a permanent essay crisis,’ he admitted.

“He is writing a follow-up to Saturday Fry for the radio and working on three television series, starting this month with A Bit of Fry and Laurie, with his partner in previous successful shows Hugh Laurie. He is doing ten Whose Line Is It Anyway? shows for Channel Four, is lined up for six videos with John Cleese’s Video Arts and his new regular column in The Listener started today.

“He writes and acts what he finds funny without any attempt to appeal.

“‘Television is a graveyard of programmes that tried to appeal,’ he commented.

“As for the future: ‘I have no sense of the future,’ he admitted, looking distinctly tired, as the adrenalin started to settle down.

“Stephen Fry was due for a long, long sleep – 11 hours on the trot. Normally he only has time for about four or five hours within a 24-hour period.

“To catch up, he escapes from his London base to a quiet retreat in his native Norfolk – but he hadn’t managed to escape for two months and just as he planned to go, up came the Bafta award evening with friends. Emma Thompson who originally spotted him in the Cambridge Footlights, was nominated and so was Rowan Atkinson, with whom he has had a lot of fun doing the Blackadder series.

“Friends are important, they are his ‘home life’ – a life that starts after the theatre and mostly means ‘crawling home at three or four in the morning’.

“His general air of laid back good temper made me wonder if anything could upset his calm.

“He had to think about it but decided that recently he had felt very angry when a particular paper attacked him and his colleagues for supporting Comic Relief and helping abroad instead of raising money for Great Ormond Street Hospital, for British children.

“Stephen Fry feels strongly he and his friends did the right thing.

“‘If this nation wanted to change things with regard to Great Ormond Street we could. That is a man made problem. The Ethiopians cannot change the weather, they can’t help themselves.

“‘We are lucky to live in a fertile country and should help people like the Ethiopians,’ he emphasised.