If you look up ‘enthrall’ in the dictionary it says tr.v. en·thralled, en·thrall·ing, en·thralls 1. To hold spellbound; captivate:. It shouldn’t. It should have a picture of Stephen Fry and his lovable wonky face. Surely, there isn’t a person in the world who doesn’t like Fry? As we know, he has the ability to make you fall down laughing, but also, he has the ability to tackle something far more serious and engage you all the same.

On Tuesday, we see Fry gunning for the latter with a compassionate and informed documentary called Stephen Fry: HIV and Me (BBC2, Tuesday, 9pm). Of course, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen Fry in candid and revealing form as those who witnessed the brilliant and unflinching Secret Life of the Manic Depressive can testify. Now he turns his kind (but not completely uncritical) eye to the HIV virus.

In this moving account, we see Fry wandering through his memories and recalling the friends he has lost to HIV. He talks to Kim Harris, his first real love from his years at Cambridge who is now nearly blind, having become HIV-positive through his partner, who has since passed away. Harris says “Of all the ways to leave the party, it’s one of the most agonising.”

Although Fry is kind and thoughtful throughout, we also see his anger at what he sees as the needless risks taken by a new generation of young people (gay and straight it’s worth pointing out) when it comes to sex. This is a moving and touching journey that sees Fry going from Doncaster, to the side of a dying AIDS patient to the townships of South Africa. [Mof Gimmers]