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Fry in the United States...
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July 2, 2009
 By Billy Suter
Stephen Fry, celebrated British writer and actor, explores the United States, the country he might nearly have called home, in Stephen Fry In America, a six-parter to be seen at 9.30pm each Friday on DStv's BBC Knowledge, starting tomorrow.
The reason Fry might have been born an American is that, shortly before he was born, his father was offered, but turned down, a job at Princeton University.
In his new series Fry tours the big US of A, a country which has always fascinated him, by hiring a taxi and visiting each and every one of the 50 states, to experience for himself the variety of people and places that make up the country.
Starting in the north-east, Fry explores the states that make up New England, before heading south to the nation's capital. He ends up at the Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg in Pennsylvania, where Abraham Lincoln made his famous address.
He then heads to the Deep South, joining coalminers underground in West Virginia.
Next, he enjoys a bluegrass music-making session in Tennessee, before celebrating Thanksgiving at an old plantation house in Georgia.
Journeying west to the Mississippi Delta, Fry experiences Mardi Gras on the streets of New Orleans and visits the abandoned neighbourhoods destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
His journey also takes him on a tour through Angola Penitentiary, one of America's most notorious prisons.
In the American mid-west, he visits the Badlands of South Dakota, before heading for the deluxe skiing resort of Aspen, Colorado.
It's then on through New Mexico and Arizona to the Pacific coastline, joining Big Foot-believers in the Oregon redwood forests and visiting an edgy cabaret in Seattle.
The epic journey culminates in the contrasting surroundings of America's newest states as Fry embarks on an unsuccessful whale hunt in the Alaskan wilderness and goes swimming with sharks in Hawaii.
"Delightfully presented with Fry's ready wit and genuine enthusiasm, Stephen Fry In America is a charming exploration of a fascinatingly varied nation," says a DStv spokesman.
Keeping things in America … note that e.tv is tonight showing BAYWATCH: HAWAIIAN WEDDING, a 2003 film that returns some of the cast of the massively popular Baywatch cast for a feature film. Set for 8pm, the movie stars skinny-legged David Hasselhoff, Pamela Anderson and Yasmine Bleeth.
It has long-in-the-tooth lifeguard Mitch (Hasselhoff) falling in love and inviting all his beach colleagues to his wedding.
However, little does he know that his fiancée is conspiring with a villain from Mitch's past to place the group in a life-threatening situation.
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