Stephen Fry In Central America

The QI host entertains on a trip south of the border
Ben-Felsenburg-colour-176At last there’s a show for those who may have heard rather too much of Stephen Fry after his countless panel-show appearances in recent years. The go-to wit of British TV has gone abroad to pop up in the Mexican drama An Italian Girl Comes To Find A Husband. Unfortunately, union rules mean his role as the Jeeves to the fella courting the heroine must be entirely wordless. Actually, this telenovela cameo is just one of many very entertaining scenes in Stephen Fry In Central America (Thursday, ITV , 9pm). The four-part travelogue is a very welcome reminder of how engaging Fry can be when he’s as interested and impassioned as he is here.

His journey will take him 5,000 miles, from El Paso, Texas, to Panama and the cusp of South America. He begins among the wondrous sights of Mexico, where, in addition to other adventures, he encounters Chihuahuas – both the state and the dog – as well as a landscape of vast valleys with a breathless beauty straight out of the fantasy land in Game Of Thrones, and a dusty train platform that is lacking only a twanging guitar to qualify as a Sergio Leone out-take.

Fry throws himself with a hearty appetite for life into everything he does, and as we see him moved to tears at a protest by those left bereaved by the murderous drug clans that plague the country, we learn he has a heart to match his mighty wit.

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