Stephen Fry will look at language on Planet Word

"I haven't seen a good documentary about language, where it comes from, how we speak it, the variations of it, whether languages are dying, whether we are better at speaking than we were," English actor and author Stephen Fry told the Radio Times. His new five-part series, Planet Word, will change all that, he hopes.

"Language is my real passion," said Fry. "So I'm going to Beijing to interview the man who invented Pinyin, a phonetic version of the Chinese language. He's 105 years old. ... If he dies on me, I'm going to be so annoyed."

Speaking about his recent BBC series on the controversial composer Richard Wagner, Fry said: "I think programmes only work if they matter to you, because I think audiences are smart — even though you wouldn't believe the BBC thinks so." When he delivered the BAFTA Television Lecture in June, Fry said it was "shocking" how "infantilized" adult programmes had become on British TV.