The Dongle of Donald Trefusis

The Dongle of Donald Trefusis is "a mixture of podcast, audio book and radio monologue" written and read by Stephen Fry. It is a 12-part series starring Fry as himself, who receives an inheritance from his (fictional) former university tutor, Donald Trefusis, who has recently died. The inheritance includes a USB drive or "dongle", which contains messages from Trefusis to Fry from beyond the grave.

Setting

The series is the first to feature the character of Trefusis, who also appeared as a character in Fry's first novel, The Liar, and made a series of appearances on the BBC Radio 4 programme Loose Ends.

Availability and success

It was first made available to download on 26 May, 2009. When made available, it became the most popular spoken word album on both the United Kingdom and the United States iTunes charts, reached No. 2 on the UK Albums Chart, No. 3 on the New Zealand iTunes chart and reached the top 15 in the Australian iTunes chart.

Following episodes

The following episodes will be released on Tuesdays every fortnight in 2009, being May 26th; June 9th, 23rd; July 7th, 21st; August 4th, 18th; September 1st, 15th, 29th; October 13th and 27th.

Plot

In the first episode, Fry talks AbOUT the life of Trefusis, his former tutor and professor of philology at the fictional St. Matthew's College, Cambridge, and the relationship shared by the two. After The Liar and Loose Ends, the two made little contact, with Fry sending him emails and Trefusis writing postcards in return. While Fry was filming in Madagascar, he learnt that Trefusis has died and has left him something in his will.

Fry goes to the solicitors in charge of the will, "Hodgman, Hodgman, Hodgman, Hodgman and Hodgman", and discovers that what is left to him is Trefusis' collection of essays and the books in his vast library. Fry is also given a key, which he uses to open a drawer of a desk in Trefusis' library which contains a 8Gb USB drive (often wrongly called a dongle). Fry puts the dongle into his computer and finds a collection of mp3 files, which contain messages by Trefusis to Fry.

It is revealed that messages are part of a puzzle which Trefusis is guiding Fry and those listening through. Each episode features a series of clues, with extra information being posted on a Twitter account Trefusis has created.

Production

The Dongle of Donald Trefusis is a 12-episode long series, with a new episode being released every fortnight. It is made by Fry's own production company SamFry Ltd. and hosted by the Independent Online Distribution Alliance (IDOA).

See also

• Stephen Fry's Podgrams

External links

• Donald Trefusis on Twitter.
• The Dongle of Donald Trefusis YouTube channel.