Stephen Fry named presenter of the year for global homophobia documentary

Actor, presenter and journalist Stephen Fry has been honoured with an award as presenter of the year for a BBC series which saw him travel around the world looking at homophobia.

Mr Fry beat David Attenborough and Davina McCall to win the honour at the Royal Television Society Programme Awards on Tuesday.

The award was given for his BBC2 programme ‘Stephen Fry: Out There’, in which he travelled to countries like Uganda, Russia and India to examine the treatment of the gay communities there.

After saying he had moved on from the “mad compulsion” which led to a suicide attempt last year whilst filming, he said he was on effective medication for the first time “that really seems to be working”

On accepting the award last night, he said: “In the time we made this programme Out There I met some of the most horrific, evil people I have ever imagined could have possibly existed on the face of the earth; I also met some of the most heroic, brave, stalwart people I also have ever met.

“Winston Churchill one said you judge a civilisation by the way it treats its prisoners – I think you can judge a civilisation by the way it treats its minorities.”

Of his team who supported him throughout the production of the documentary, he said: “They saw me at my lowest and my worst and my happiest but we believed in what we were making and we thank the Royal Television Society from the bottom of our hearts.”

• Nov 29 2023

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