I Love Stephen Fry
Canter, Jon
Jackie is married to a good-natured but big-bottomed butcher, Terry. She works in a newsagent and she's restless. Her youngest child, Chloe, is about to get married to Carl, a sensible lad. But Jackie thinks Chloe's repeating her own mistake: marrying too young, without exploring her options. Jackie's a big fan of Stephen Fry and would love her daughter to be marrying a man as interesting as him. Jackie buys a tent, ostensibly as a wedding present for Chloe. But instead Jackie sleeps in the tent herself, in the garden, to escape her husband. She has a series of dreams about Stephen Fry. He's everything her husband Terry is not: eloquent, metropolitan, learned and gay. In a series of exciting and alarming fantasies, Jackie and Stephen have a platonic love affair. Then Chloe meets Stephen Fry in an Indian restaurant and tells him her mum is in love with him. Suddenly, fantasy is becoming reality.
Terry discovers his wife is in love with a man known only as 'Steve'. He's no idea who Steve is. Should he confront Steve? Or should he keep quiet and wait for his wife's affair with Steve to blow over. Eventually, husband, wife and Steve meet in an Ipswich bookshop and have their lives changed forever. Except Steve. He just carries on being Stephen Fry.