Ben Elton is fighting fit, funny and feisty even though he is feeling his age. Not for a minute is he going to hold back on a world of Authentic Stupidity.
Is it one necessary counterbalance to Artificial Intelligence? Both are products of human endeavour. AI could be an existential threat to the advanced apes, once the machines realise their Creators are the problem.
Ben Elton wrote my generation’s lifestyle and behaviour. Therefore, it’s aspirations. He has always worn his socialist and humanitarian heart on his sleeve.
The Young Ones broke in 1981, and it seemed like Elton was essentially writing our student flat. Four young varsity students in a messy flat. A punk, a hippie, a greaser and a poseur. Full of self-righteous socialist passion and indignation even as we were taking the piss out of everything.
Are these lentils South African, Neil!! An hilarious one-liner in a year when we were University students, and the Springbok Tour was on.
Elton was part of the crucial collective which ushered in Alternative Comedy in the Eighties in the United Kingdom. Itself a bit of a revolution to the prevailing alternative comedy of the Oxford and Cambridge contingent which had thrown up Monty Python.
Elton went on to co-write the superb Blackadder series from season two to four. A third one Filthy, Rich and Catflap was sadly under-rated.
Of course he was written books, West End musicals including a collaboration with Andrew Lloyd-Weber. Has had numerous television shows of his own and is clearly one of the Lords of British comedy.
Has he still got anything for us, this fifth Beatle to his own Young Ones creation?
In 1981 he was continually dissing PM Thatcher. This time the elephant in the theatre is Trump of course. That presence is acknowledged but it is not overbearing, and he tiptoes around it.
He fumes a bit. They say everyone gets a bit conservative as they get older. Not bloody likely! But he has mellowed a little in his customary tirades.
He has some sympathy to the Gen Z’s and Millenials, even as he expertly skewers their pretensions and foibles.
I’ve made a living out of knob jokes for forty years. He was even able to bestow one on a previous generation’s comedy icon Ronnie Corbett, to his great delight.
Instead of taking the piss, these days the joke is how long it takes him to have a piss.
Stalks around the stage grumbling that he’s 65. I’m thinking he’s not as unfit as he makes out. I’m in my Sgt Pepper year (64) and wondering how this guy hasn’t changed his character from our student days.
Comedians these days are afraid of cancel culture. Social media can turn on you in the beat of a tweet.
That is no hindrance as Elton extends out on euthanasia and the humanity of choosing your own time to die. Skirting close to suicide issues but Elton has always been fearless in comedy and time is not going to dull his edge. Will still cut close to the bone.
Stand-up comedy and fast-paced Rap breathe in the same rarefied atmosphere. Not pretty but that’s the point.
Elton mines the more hysterical preoccupations of the Rainbow community. The important function of humour as a safety release valve to let people quietly blow their stacks.
We all are grateful for that. Audience are still with him and continually laughing.
The last time I saw him was over twenty years ago. In that time Elton has also seen fluctuating fortunes.
There was one time when he was asked whether he was responsible for killing off Benny Hill? An hilarious sketch where he parodies Hill as a leftie bore being chased by sexy women
His answer. No. He just got old and went out of fashion. it happens to us all.
Ben Elton plays to his audience. Majority are Boomers but there are significant numbers of younger. Like my daughter who reacts to the lampooning with laughter. Everyone finds fart jokes funny, and they always will.
Rev. Orange Peel
Ben Elton plays Dunedin 1 May 2025, and Christchurch 2 May 2025
Tickets available at livenation.co.nz