Fry tweets his way to safety after getting trapped in lift

Rare is the celebrity who would deploy the phrase “arse, poo and widdle” to announce their displeasure at being stuck in a lift, and fewer still would broadcast their dissatisfaction using internet microblogging service Twitter. But then Stephen Fry, it seems, is no ordinary celebrity.

It was after a “Meet the Author” event in central London last night that the actor and quiz-show host, whose Twitter feed, twitter.com/stephenfry, boasts more than 115,000 followers, became trapped in a lift on roughly the 26th floor of the capital’s Centre Point building. “Ok. This is now mad”, he announced to those who follow his frequent updates from around the world, “I am stuck on the 26th floor of Centre Point. Hell’s Teeth”.

Over the course of the next thirty minutes, Fry continued to ‘tweet’ events, distributing via his page a picture of his compatriots as they waited for engineers to fix the problem. After half an hour, a jubilant Fry was released from the ordeal, announcing via his phone, “We're free! Nice men from Thyssen freed us. Paramount Club had champagne for us at the bottom. I'm allergic, but nice thought.”

Fry is not the only celebrity to use the microblogging service, which has garnered much attention in the media recently thanks to a slew of endorsements. Public figures as diverse as Gordon Brown, Phillip Schofield, Barack Obama, John Cleese and William Shatner have all got Twitter feeds they use to keep friends and fans up to date.