Ben Elton
Ben Elton
Benjamin Charles "Ben" Eltonis an English comedian, author, playwright, actor and director. He was a part of London's alternative comedy movement of the 1980s and became a writer on series such as The Young Ones and Blackadder, as well as continuing as a stand-up comedian on stage and television. His style in the 1980s was left-wing political satire. Since then he has published 15 novels and written the musicals We Will Rock Youand Love Never Dies, the sequel to The...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth3 May 1959
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Even if it sounds pretentious, which it isn't-I've found it artistically challenging to produce a monologue that is filled with laughter and ideas. It's a tough thing to pull off, but satire is better if it has conviction behind it.
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Queen's music is uniquely theatrical. I had this vision where The Matrix meets the Arthurian legend meets Terminator 2.
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Britain has lost one of its greatest comic artists, but he lives on in an incomparable body of work.
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Most of my work isn't directly autobiographical. It tends to be an amalgam of things I've seen and heard and thought and conversations I've had.
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Most of my stand-up comedy is about being a small, scared, neurotic individual among the billions of other small, scared, neurotic individuals that make up the mass which is us. I always think the first target of a stand-up comic should be themselves-we all share our weaknesses, and it's fun to use them as a source of comedy.
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This calls for a very special blend of psychology and extreme violence.
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And roast beef and Yorkshire pudding is my personal signature dish.
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My advice to anyone adapting a novel is that once they've read it and learnt to understand it, then they must throw it away and never look at it again!
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I try hard not to preach, but I get carried away, which is a mistake, but it's a risk worth running.
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The earth only has so much bounty to offer and inventing ever larger and more notional prices for that bounty does not change its real value.
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No collection of people who are all waiting for the same thing are capable of holding a natural conversation. Even if the thing they are waiting for is only a taxi.
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I think trying to be cool is the worst possible ambition - and I have never suffered from it.
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The appropriation of radical thinking by lazy, self-obsessed hippies is a public relations disaster that could cost the earth.
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I'm lucky because the strongest emotion I have ever felt is being in love, and that definitely informs my writing.