Pop Vultures

It is no secret that I am rather a lot in love with Stephen Fry. Basically, I want to have his erudite, sarcastic babies. Naturally, I was thrilled to find he has been branching out from hosting QI to present a documentary series about the Gutenberg printing press.

The Gutenberg press, in case you don’t know, was this printing press invented by this bloke called Johann Gutenberg, and it changed the whole world because it made these things called ‘books’ possible. But, whatever. Who cares about that? It’s Stephen Fry, waxing lyrical about the written word and translating German and charming the socks off academic ladies of a certain age. Also, he’s teamed up with a man in a shed to build from scratch a press just like Gutenberg’s (tricky since no plans or drawings survive) which means - be still my heart - Stephen Fry doing woodwork! Wielding a chisel! And a mallet! And maintaining his usual witty and self-deprecating banter throughout. It is glorious.

Sorry, I should be serious for a moment. Perhaps you don’t much care for Stephen Fry (freak!) but are passionately interested in fifteenth century printing presses. In that case, you should still love this show, because of course the wonderful Fry goes into extensive detail about Gutenberg’s life, his inspiration, and the realisation of his vision - a machine that could duplicate text.

In fact, and I say this as a Fry fan so devoted I would happily tune in to watch the man do his dishes, I would even venture to suggest he goes into a bit too much detail. A segment, for example, about whether Gutenberg was inspired to use a corkscrew mechanism in his design after seeing grape presses being used in the wine industry is overly long, purely speculative and just a bit dull. And anyway, it takes up time that could be used showing Stephen Fry in his shirtsleeves experimenting with fifteenth century paper-making techniques. And I think we can all agree that’s scintillating stuff. (Shut up! Yes it is!)

So, in conclusion, watch this show if you a) love Stephen Fry or b) love factoids about the life and work of fifteenth century German inventors. But if you don’t much care about either of those things, you probably shouldn’t bother.

Unsure if you fit into either category? Watch the first part of the show below and tell me what you think.