Saturday Night Fry
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Saturday Night Fry was a six part comedy series on BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 1988.
Hosted by Stephen Fry—accompanied each week by a selection of guests including Jim Broadbent, Emma Thompson, Phyllida Law and longtime collaborator Hugh Laurie—the show took the form of a round table discussion and sketches which veered tangentially from the sublime to the ridiculous.
Snippets of classical music were used to mark breaks between items, usually succeeded by Stephen's voice saying, "And as the strains of the <insert piece of music here> fade away we turn to..."
Although slightly different in format the series could be seen as a direct precursor to A Bit of Fry and Laurie, the 1990 TV Series, which employed a very similar style of humour and wordplay.
The signature tune, opening each episode was "Saturday Night Fish Fry" by Louis Jordan.
There was also a show of the same name running on BBC Radio 4 in 1998, again hosted by Stephen Fry. This was a completely different show, however, being a series of 45 minute serious debates interspersed with the occasional sketch or piece of music.