Stephen Fry's Key to the City, review When Stephen Fry was offered the Freedom of the City of London, he had no idea what it meant - besides apparently being able to drive goats over Tower Bridge. Fry lives in the West End of London, but admitted the City seemed like a foreign country to him. "The whole thing set me out on a course of thinking," Fry said, in this one-off ITV documentary, "If I'm going to accept this honour, I want to penetrate the City of London." He used his new status to explore the nooks and crannies of the Square Mile, uncovering some fascinating remnants of the City's past, namely the ruins of a Roman house at the bottom of a nondescript Seventies office block, not open for public viewing, and catching a glimpse of the underground River Fleet, in the bowels of the Old Bailey. He visited the infamous Newgate Prison, tracing the final steps of prisoners condemned to public execution, where the doors get gradually smaller and narrower. "The thing that drew me to The City in the first place is the apparent contrast between the cutting edges of modern existence and the roots in ancient ritual," Fry said. He was best at the ancient ritual: there were some amusing scenes of Fry being told by a City Beadle to get a haircut, and asking the Lord Mayor, as he was getting dressed in his full ceremonial garb, "Do you mind if I finger your ermine?" But he was at his weakest when looking at the City's current position as a financial centre. Fry admitted that he wags his finger at bankers, but besides asking a skyscraper window cleaner about how he feels about the people inside earning millions in bonuses, he never fully addressed the City's controversial reputation. A conversation with City grandee Lord Levene, about the banking world's response to the financial crisis, felt rushed. But that was not the greatest oversight. Over 400,000 people work in the City of London, mainly in the financial sector, but it is home to just 8,000. Fry shared tea and fondant fancies with the delightful Doris McGovern, now in her eighties, who was born and bred within the Square Mile. She too holds the Freedom to the City, but equally had no idea what it means in practice. But not enough time was spent in her company, and little was revealed about what it's like to live in the heart of London, or how it's changed within her lifetime. It was a missed opportunity.