Stephen Fry

"I couldn’t be more proud to be shortlisted for this award. Travelling throughout the United States and meeting rare and endangered American citizens in their fragile natural habitat and then doing the same around the world with animals was one of the great experiences of my life. If travel truly does broaden the mind, then I must be one of the most broad-minded people around…"

Stephen Fry brings a unique style to travel which he shares in his inimitable way with a captivated audience.

Forgoing gung-ho adventures and extreme survival, Stephen instead approaches his travels with warmth, wit and human empathy, relayed to the audience in his honeyed tones.

Most recently, Stephen partnered with seasoned environmental campaigner and wildlife adventurer Mark Carwardine for the BBC’s Last Chance To See in 2009. The pair spent seven months tracking endangered species in remote areas all over the world.

Animal lover Stephen described their adventures as ‘exhausting, exhilarating and exasperating’, gamely sacrificing his own comfort zone to trek and camp his way across continents in pursuit of animals on the brink of extinction.

Preceding Last Chance… was the popular BBC documentary Stephen Fry in America. For the show, Stephen travelled across all 50 states, mostly in a London cab, to discover what makes America tick. He met presidential hopefuls in New Hampshire, witches in Salem, submariners in Connecticut, deer hunters, small time mobsters in New York, socialites in Rhode Island and lobster fishermen in Maine.

In a career that launched in 1982 with a role in Cambridge Footlights Revue alongside Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Tony Slattery, Stephen has appeared in a huge range of productions on stage, television and radio. He is also a prolific writer, having completed four novels, an autobiography and countless articles for newspapers and magazines.