The Louis Theroux Podcast - S1 EP9: Ben Elton on ‘cancel culture’, his early stand up career, and writing for Blackadder and The Young Ones

Episode Date: July 31, 2023

Louis meets writer and comedian Ben Elton. They discuss his long and varied comedy career, including standup at the iconic Comedy Store in Soho, as well as writing for Blackadder and The Young Ones. Ben also reveals his thoughts on so-called ‘cancel culture’ and the accusation of being ‘worse than Osama Bin Laden’.  Warning: Contains strong language and sensitive themes.   Links: The Young Ones https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLwc9lbJlIQ    Blackadder https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rW2sBwrRbfo    The Thin Blue Line https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pSkJ5K74e4    Upstart Crow https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH_KU_MI0OM    We Will Rock You Musical https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WsZ1iD5cpM    Stark by Ben Elton https://www.amazon.co.uk/Stark-Satirical-Thriller-Ben-Elton/dp/0552773557   Saturday Night Live https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ptx_H2XWGV8    Four Weddings and a Funeral https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-HeV8Z6iXc    Jim Davidson’s YouTube channel ‘Jim Davidson's Ustreme’ https://www.youtube.com/@jimdavidsonustreme/videos    Gridlock by Ben Elton https://www.amazon.co.uk/Gridlock-Ben-Elton/dp/0552773565    Friday Night Live https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBTKzxOJkQo&t=197s     Credits:  Producer: Paul Kobrak  Assistant Producer: Maan Al-Yasiri  Production Manager: Francesca Bassett  Music: Miguel D’Oliveira  Show notes compiled by Shaloma Ellis  Executive Producer: Arron Fellows    A Mindhouse Production exclusively for Spotify  www.mindhouse.co.uk    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Oh my god, here we are. Hello and welcome to the Louis Theroux podcast. Louis Theroux here, standing in for Louis Theroux here Standing in for Louis Theroux This week we have a guest that I've wanted to book for some time And the stars finally aligned His name is Ben Elton Comedian, writer, eminence grise of British television And in particular the alternative comedy wave of the early 80s

Stand-up comedian, did I say that? He's also celebrated for his writing on the TV shows, The Young Ones, Blackadder, The Thin Blue Line, and much more recently, Upstart Crow. He's also collaborated with Andrew Lloyd Webber, the composer and musicals guy. Okay, Andrew Lloyd Webber, the composer and musicals guy. Okay. Impresario, is that the right term? And Queen with the jukebox musical, We Will Rock You. His uncle, I mentioned this because I know that was a name to conjure with if you studied history. His uncle was the distinguished historian, Geoffrey Alton. The name comes up in conversation conversation Ben lives most of the time in Australia in Western Australia in Frio

we had an email exchange he's like, I'm going to be in Frio I'm like, oh where is Frio? and he goes, oh sorry, that's Fremantle it's what we call it in Australia Australians like to put O's on the end of words oh yeah mate, I loved you, doco I watched it in the Arvo.

Arvo's afternoon, isn't it? It was brillo. I can't think, they do like to add O's on the ends of nouns, which is fine. I like doing that too. Okay, and now for the obligatory, offensive and discriminatory language alert. We'll also be discussing many of the usual themes reflecting the darkness of life and the misery of human existence. Ben was in London when we spoke, but perversely, my family commitments prevented me from seeing him in person, so I ended up speaking remotely. I was at home, Ben was in his hotel, and Paul was with Ben, having provided him with the necessary gear and holding his hand through the process.

There he is. Right, I'm going to set up in the other room. If you want to start... Let's just do it. We should definitely do it. What else are we going to set up in the other room. But if you want to start... Let's just do it. We should definitely do it. What else are we going to do? OK, nice to see you again, Larry. Nice to see you, Ben.

Thanks for doing this. We've only met a couple of times. Once was at this Radio Times Covers party. We were both on the cover of the Radio Times. It's not a brag. We were both on the piss, which we certainly were. Hitting the Prosecco quite hard in the company of Michael Palin, name drop. And then the other time was a screening for David Baddiel's Jews Don't Count film.

That's right. This is a random place to start. I don't know, probably the wrong place. But anyway, I hadn't realised until I think we were maybe at that screening that you are half Jewish. By heritage. Some people think it's weird I get so specific about this, but if there's such a thing as identity, then I'm not at all Jewish, because I don't identify as

such. Racially, I'm half Jewish in that my father was very much part of a Jewish family and a Jewish community in Germany, but a secular one for many generations. He was an atheist. I'm an atheist. I don't subscribe to any faith. Doesn't mean I don't have faith. Oh, you've got to have faith, but certainly not any organised religion. So I don't consider myself Jewish, but I'm perfectly happy to tell you where my father came from. Would it be correct to say your dad and his family were refugees? They became refugees for a brief and terrifying period of their lives and the lives of many Jewish people in Europe. It was very difficult, but my grandparents and their two sons

were four of the very tiny group of lucky ones who did get out, and they arrived pretty much with nothing, but they got here in 1939 through a lengthy and inspiring story dependent entirely on the kindness of strangers. After my grandmother had written many hundreds of letters, they tried to be domestic servants on Australian sheep farms. I mean, there was no area of the planet that they didn't try to find somebody who would give them a job, which might mean a visa, etc. But they did get out. A lot of people chose to believe it can't be as bad as people are saying it's going to be and didn't but my grandfather was a historian my grandmother was a incredibly thoughtful and astute woman a poet and they could see exactly what was happening

and they got out so yeah he was a refugee your father came with his parents and your uncle that was jeffrey elton the eminent historian well he wasn't there and he was another refugee boy of 17 they did well and both became professors but they didn't speak a word of english when they arrived Frielton, the eminent historian. Well, he wasn't then. He was another refugee boy of 17. They did well and both became professors, but they didn't speak a word of English when they arrived. And their birth name was Ehrenberg. At what point did the name change come about? My grandparents never changed their name.

They remained Victor and Eva Ehrenberg till they died, living in a flat in Hampstead in the 70s. I don't think my dad and uncle were considering changing their name. Actually, my uncle was basically ordered to change his name when he joined the army. And early on, they basically said, you know, you're Jewish, you speak German, you've got a Jewish name. We strongly suggest you come back tomorrow with a different name for your passbook, etc. Because if you're captured, you know, you'll definitely you don't want to be called ludwig ehrenberg and my uncle went home well went back to his barrack or whatever and thought about it decided to keep the initials ge and opted for jeffrey elton and my dad who was much younger and so wasn't in the army decided to

go with it so the two boys already determined to be British, decided that they would change their name. And that's why I'm an Elton. By the way, let me say, not just you've written 16 hugely successful books, but created some of the most memorable and brilliant TV of modern times, including two series, at least, which is no exaggeration to call cultural landmarks. I'm thinking obviously principally of The Young Ones and Blackadder. One of the things in very pleasurably going back over some of the older programs, some of the newer ones as well that you've made, I sort of noticed, wow, you are kind of a perfect candidate for Hollywood success. And I wondered whether you'd spent much time over there and how far down the road of kind of a perfect candidate for Hollywood success. And I wondered whether you'd spent

much time over there and how far down the road of kind of LA based success you'd gone. My son, Bert, when he was 11, out of the blue said to me, Dad, you know, you and I've got something in common. I said, what's that? He said, neither of us have made it in America, which I thought was pretty funny for an 11 year old. Look, it's a big thing in our business, less so now. Finally, there's a big thing in our business. Less so now. Finally, there's a little bit of internationalism in streaming Netflix. You know, suddenly like, hey, the Koreans and the Norwegians are suddenly punching above their weight. Who knew? Or whatever.

But for a very long time, we all know that, you know, the epicenter of global entertainment was America, was principally Hollywood, etc. And I'm not going to deny, of course, it would have been nice to make it there but you have to put the hours in and I didn't do that I've always been a bit of a sole trader I kind of get involved in the things I want to get involved in I've always been able to earn enough to do that that's a real privilege and that's very focused and America I think is a much more organized industry they have writers rooms have showrunners they always have had a very producer-led. We're getting more like that. But in the old days, our industry was much more cottage industry.

And it really was kind of artist-led, you know. I mean, people came up with ideas and the sort of bumbling sort of lovelies at the BBC kind of let you get on with them, if you were lucky, as I was. So I was very happy where I was going. So I never pursued it. You need to focus on America. I always remember admiring so much what Eddie Izzard did

when, well, he at the time, she now. We were both playing Birmingham and we were in the same hotel. It was back in the 90s. And he told me about his American plan. I'm going to go and I'm going to work every college and the next year I'm going to go back and I'm going to work a theatre.

And my goodness, he did it. He absolutely built his U.S. career by hard work, by tenacious touring and getting himself onto a smaller chat show, getting himself into a bigger chat show. But you don't have time for that. And two things. Firstly, I was massively busy with my career, which was deeply satisfying. And also in 1987, I fell in love with an Australian girl and so that meant that I was off to Australia the whole time I was the only

reason I wrote my first novel Stark was because I wasn't known in Australia and I was sat there in this sort of scammy flat that Sophie she's a bass player she was a musician so I wrote a novel because suddenly my English life which was on a beyond a roll I mean it was mid Saturday live I did you know seven Hammersmith Odeons that year I mean I was big I mean you know with no point there you go you see you're not supposed to say that but it's a matter of fact anyway I was suddenly in Australia and I couldn't do the benefit charity though I was asked I couldn't turn up and do this or that and that's why I became a novelist and I for years I wrote my novels while I was courting start was your first novel yeah and then you went on basically so being sequestered

for most of the year would it be in Australia basically a lot of time you know she gets annoyed when I say this because she says you're blaming me for you not making it America which is true a lot of the time when I might, and a lot of my colleagues would have been going over to America, I was going to Australia, which was lovely, but I was going out of love. I wasn't going for a career or anything. I mean, obviously, the Australian industry is great,

and I've eventually played some not entirely minor role in it, but it's obviously smaller than ours. In those days, the Aussies were trying to get to Britain, and the Brits were trying to get to America. Anyway, I'm not blaming the fact that I was in love with Sophie for the fact I never made it to America. But it is true to say that if I was getting on a plane, I wasn't going that way. And what would success, because I said that, you know,

making it in America, so it was self-evident what that would be. But would that be more a stand-up, as you mentioned, Eddie Izzard, or more as a sort of writer-director or something else? I think if I hadn't sort of settled down, A, to a wonderful career and also to a very happy marriage, which eventually resulted in children, I could have done it. I think as a writer, and I hope writer-director, that's what I would like to do.

Stand-up comedy has always been a bit of a sideline for me. It's funny because it came to define me absolutely. And from the moment of Saturday Live,'s always been you know sparkly suited comedian writes a novel rather than you know novelist does a few gigs but for me being as comedian is part of being a writer everything for me stems from sitting at my desk and writing and yeah I think I might have taken that path and tried to be a screener I mean mean, Richard, who didn't become... Richard and I were working on Blackadder through 83, 84. We're talking about Richard Curtis.

I should point that out before we get too far along. We met in 83, trying to do a sitcom for madness, trying to do a sort of new Mungies. I was reading about that. I'm so glad you brought that up, because that's in the Wikipedia entry, which I went to all the trouble of reading by the way so never let it be said i don't do my research it just seems so random and it was

something i'd never heard of before did the pilot get made madness were already kind of really on their way out and they couldn't see what we could see that actually madness were much more than their chart success they're brilliant personalities so funny and another direction would make them huge again you know it's the BBC's credit but really only because it was me and Richard and we were both hot writers the only reason I brought him up in the American discussion was because when we started we were both you know writers for the for the BBC then out of the blue in 1986 I went on Saturday Live Richard was never a performer he does a bloody good speech i can assure you of that but he's never been a performer i know this sounds

ridiculous but for i we have a quite a young audience i like to imagine i don't think they won't be listening to this thing but no richard curtis who everyone will know from his incredibly successful films which include notting Hill, Love Actually, and his work with charity. He's the Prima Mobile. Can I use that? Absolutely. Prima Mobile. That's what he is, and he should get full credit for it.

So the point I'm getting, I'm sorry, I do tend to gavel on a bit. The reason I brought him up was that there we were, I'd done The Young Ones, he'd done this first Blackadder, and then Richard rang me out the blue I'd never met him and said why don't we look at working together and I've got this idea for madness so that's how we met and we had a little bash and it didn't work but it led to quite soon after that Richard saying like we did the first series the Black Adder it was great in some ways but it didn't work in other ways and why don't we try and write it together you you and I? And that was Blackadder 2.

Now, the only reason I brought this up is because we got even more successful with that, two young writers. And then in 1986, I became famous as a comic. In 86? So had you not been doing much stand-up comedy before? I had, but I'd never had a TV break. I waited a long time. Everybody thought I was the little farty mate,

you know, Rick's little writer's mate.ick male rick male yeah your long time sadly departed collaborator creative partner star of both young ones and filthy rich and occasionally blackadder oh yeah well his turn on blackadder was one of the great comic creations i think of british television the point of me bringing it up was that I suddenly became quite late I've been a comic for a long time but there had been quite a lot of resistance to me getting a break and it literally overnight I became famous I mean pre-internet when there was only three channels or four channels so if you hit it did change your life overnight people absolutely started looking at you the moment the telly stopped that changed my

life i then became also a comedian and that diverted me from my principal task which was writing and richard of course who didn't have such a diversion carried on writing and had the focus to sit down and and not only write but develop first the tall guy and then famously four weddings the tall guy with jeff goldblum and emma emma was emma thompson was in it before she was famous quite funny it was funny that he's making a musical about the elephant man yeah rowan atkinson is a sort of fictitious musical theater star who stars in a musical about the elephant man it's all springtime they hit the sort of jet it was great fun but the point i'm making is that had i not been booked for Friday Live, perhaps I would have focused more

and I would have thought maybe I can write a screenplay. I don't say this with any regret. I mean, I love stand-up comedy. It's a great medium for ideas. It's my privilege that that's one area where I can appeal directly to the imaginations of an audience without actors, without sets, etc, etc. Similar thing to being a novelist.

But the road is a funny thing. I was listening to you, Frankie Boyle. I don't listen to podcasts much, but I've listened to two of yours. We've got a lot in common. We like to drink. We like to exercise. And we both fancied Maureen O'Sullivan in Tarzan, clearly, even though it was years before our time. I could tell

you had a self-satisfaction. God, she was stunning as Jane. Stunning, particularly in the first costume. But let's not go there. Was that mentioned in the Chris O'Dowd one? It was a Chris O'Dowd one, yeah. I've listened to two. But it was Frankie who was talking about how arduous the road is as a touring comedian.

And it is, but it's also deeply intellectually exhilarating. So I'm saying I don't regret the course I took, but had I not become famous, I think I too would have tried to focus on screenwriting more. And that's something I'd like to have done. And that might have taken me to America, as it did Richard. Who knows? You don't get a chance to live your life twice. And I certainly have no wish to. I wouldn't do anything different because I might fuck up what I've got. On the subject of being on the road, one thing Frankie Boyle had said when I talked to him was

he found the experience of being on the road arduous but in terms of being on stage he said he got no nerves like he was just clicked into it there was no part of it that he felt the least bit apprehensive about and I wondered whether that was the case with you. Well that's not quite a case he said he's better at it now I only listened to it yesterday I mean forgive me. You'll remember it better what did he say? Frankie said when he started doing it, it was truly terrifying to a point where you're physically sort of can't breathe. You're literally in the toilet, you know.

The first jokes I ever wrote, and this was in the early 80s, was that Mother Nature has located the nervous system right next to the digestive system. The arsehole of a stand-up comedian ages at twice the speed of the rest of his or her body. may be only 25 but my bum can remember the war that was my shitting yourself joke and take note that i did say his or her body even then i haven't said this very often because you know you're louis i'm going to stake my flag in this and say i was talking about the importance of language a long time ago

and feeling it you know i didn't feel i could say just his body because i knew not all stand-up comedians were men because actually there were good stand-ups in the ages it's a myth that it's a new thing female stand-ups anyway i don't know quite oh i'm doing it again you were saying that oh my god we were in a good place yeah we're talking about the road and Frankie. And he was saying he used to get terrified. And then he said he got better at it. Exactly the same experience as me. You know, you can't keep going at that level of terror. If you did, I honestly think you'd get ulcers.

You'd become physically, you either get better at it and more used to it and more relaxed about it or you stop doing it. He then said that there are periods on stage where he's seized by a panic. Even now, I think a panic even now i think he said even now 20 minutes in he'll suddenly be in panic and the reason for it is is because his gigs are kind of wild and people are sort of still feeling that they're part of it they're heckling and things like that well thank goodness i don't have a vibe like that if ever i do get a shout out it's normally enthusiastic but i make it very clear immediately

that's not what i'm doing i'm here to do my thing and it's not about you i say what did it say on the posters did it say you know ben elton or did it say ben elton plus some dickhead who can't keep his mouth shut you know people have paid to hear me and i've thought immensely hard about what i'm saying and my train of thought is incredibly precious because I'm trying to hold two hours I do two two and a half hours I speak quickly and it's all coming around and mixing ideas in and out it's all written but it's also all rewritten on stage and recreated each night and I need my focus and I won't say I'm nervous but I am in a state of high tension because I'm attempting I love that song so much

oh lord please don't let me be misunderstood I'm just a boy whose intentions are good and that's exactly how I feel when I go on stage my intentions are good I think I've got good ideas I think they are uplifting I don't think I'm punching down I think i've got interesting things to say and i hope people follow it but it's going to be complicated because nothing interesting is simple for long you know it's always going to get complicated once you once you take a deep dive as we now say we should reflect on you mentioned living in australia you as we speak you are in london yeah i'm here a lot to where my career is we used to spend most of our time in the you as we speak you are in London yeah I'm here a lot to where my career is we used to spend most of our time in the UK before we had kids we were fully UK based and Sophie

kind of gave up a lot of her life we were fortunate we could see her parents and friends more often than people who couldn't afford the flights don't talk about carbon footprint because we had no idea when we started courting that that was going to be an issue we do our best so we were in britain mainly and that was wonderful thing that she did that she was prepared to come and you know share my life her band you know didn't make it and they did very well used to get 2 000 people in sydney sometimes the band that supported me and rick male which is why i met her and we were trying for kids for for years we had to do IBS as you know I've exploited that uh comedically to its hilt on stage on film and in a novel and all that time we were in Britain we lived in London and then we had our kids and we brought them up in Britain and we made a decision because we I love my Australian family she loves her Australian family and we didn't want

our kids to miss out entirely on that or on their Australian life and culture you know they are half so we decided we would do their junior school years principally based in the UK which took us to about 2010 and then we would do their high school years principally based in Australia and they went to the same state high school that their mum went to on the west coast is that right on the yeah, in Fremantle. Yeah, Fremantle. So for 2010 to about 2018, I was principally in Australia, although I came here a lot because it's where my work is. Now the kids have grown up, and so we can be a bit more where we like.

So I need to be in Britain because I'm 63. There's stuff I want to do. Unfortunately, you know that thing? Kids grow up and suddenly your parents are your children. My father had a long, would say battle he didn't battle with alzheimer's he fucking lived with it like people do and waited to die it was a nightmare of an end he would have done anything to avoid it but unfortunately he lost the ability to do anything by the time it was clear what was happening i'm an enormous believer in voluntary assisted dying i think the banality of the debate

around it is excruciatingly stupid, and it's interesting that it tends to be right-wingers who feel most strongly about the sanctity of life, except when it comes to selling guns to Saudi Arabia or hanging people. Anyway, leaving that parenthesis aside... When you make comments like that on stage, you normally go, it's getting a bit political. A little bit of politics. I don't say that so much anymore.

People know. So all I'm saying is i'm in britain more but of course now sophie's mother has succumbed almost completely to dementia so we have that in our family her father is you know needs all the support that he can get my mother's still alive i love her very very much she's in her home now so i'm here and she's there at the moment but it's a good marriage you know we often say if I was driving a truck or in a submarine, we'd see even less of each other. But once the ties of our parents are cut, as must come quite soon, my father's already gone,

then I think we'll be in Britain as we were before much more. But I'm here a lot and I'm here now and I wanted to meet you live. But you said, oh, I've got a kid to pick up and everything. Well, I feel bad. I thought that was the subtext of your reply. And when I saw that, I was like, oh, I think he'd rather meet in person. The only two of yours I've listened to, you cancelled both of them and did it a day late. So at least you haven't done that to me. I was fully expecting to get the call, both Frankie and Chris. Chris, I was drunk when I made

the arrangement and didn't read the text. Well, I'm often drunk, but I tend to remember stuff, even so. It's pretty sad. Let's get, often drunk, but I tend to remember stuff, even so. It's pretty sad. Let's get, you know, it feels obligatory when talking about comedy nowadays to at least make a cursory reference to the culture wars. I think I know where you stand on this, Ben. And by the way, I do think that what you did in the 80s has really stood the test of time, like attempting to use language and explore themes that were not sexist, that were

not racist. Now that seems normal. But back then it was called alternative because most comedians weren't doing that. So I'm giving you a special invisible medal for that. That sounds like I'm trivial, but I think that was a commendation. I'm wearing it with pride. We're in different times now. And so a lot of comedians, not all, but there are comedians now who say, well, you can't joke about anything nowadays. Even Jennifer Saunders, your sometime collaborator, made a comment along those lines and plenty of other people have. Obviously, I was curious where you stood on it. And you said on Radio 4, I don't believe cancel culture is remotely real. So to put that in one bucket, and then in the other bucket, in the Radio Times,

you said there is a whiff of Maoism in the air, the whiff of cultural revolution. It seems like the younger generation is all about making rules. You've taken a radio before, that's one. I can't quite remember what I said, but what I was saying about- It was a Justin Webb. Actually, listen to it in the car. Justin Webb was sort of inviting you to say something along the lines of, yeah, there's too many people policing our comedy. Yeah. And I remember saying, I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to get me to say, we can't say anything anymore. I'm not going to say it because I have always policed my own work. Now, firstly, I do think there is something in the world of cancel culture. Everybody knows that

it's very easy to laugh at it when you say, oh, you know, poor old J.K. Rowling. She's been cancelled. Oh, billionaire, multi-novelist, etc. But there's no doubt about it. She has suffered considerably for publicising her views. I don't know if anyone has ever been totally cancelled and she certainly hasn't. She's a massively successful artist. But there is something in a world, some people say it's not counselling, it's calling out, and I would agree with that, but sometimes the calling out can either be fair or unfair,

depending on your point of view. Sometimes they call it consequence culture. Consequence culture. But, I mean, you know, someone's consequences are somebody else's whatever-equences, he says with brilliant wit. To say boldly there's no such thing as cancel culture, if that's what I said, and I'm sure I put it more nuancedly, although those words may have been part of the nuanced sentence,

that's not what I would have meant. What I meant in that context is there isn't a police force out there that, right, you're out, you're never going to be heard of again. That is not happening. Unquestionably, there is a lot of abuse flying around the internet where people are calling for group abuse i don't want anyone to go to this theater do you know someone's coming to this theater that i don't like etc that's going on and to a certain extent that's affecting people's careers and lives and sometimes it may be considered they deserve it and sometimes not

but the idea that you just get zapped is not the case and on the whole i think it is mainly a right-wing trope i think it is something the daily mail loves to go on about that nobody's allowed to say anything and if they do this weird world of wokeism will see them off and i don't see any evidence of that what we are seeing is people getting bullied on the internet from all sides and you can call that a bitty cancely cancely wansley stuff or not but there's a lot of bullying going on the much more interesting debate aside from whether or not a twitter storm can fuck you up or not and it can certainly hurt i got only ever in one and sophie was so angry with me because i was doing my last

stand-up tour and I did some press in Scotland and of course inevitably they get straight on to you know you stand on independence Mr Elton and etc etc and I made what I thought was innocuous and in context quite well balanced point about why I can absolutely understand looking at the Westminster governments of the last 15 years you know why there's a massive thirst for independence in Scotland and if were I to be Scottish I would probably be doing my best to sever links with Westminster which seems to be permanently Tory and a Tory party which is drifting further and further into madness they've seen what Trump has achieved by sheer brutal mendacity and an almost well certainly

a sociopathic perhaps pathological denial of truth and denial of any level of personal standards they've seen what they can do and johnson took the baton and ran with it with a posher accent so it didn't look quite so scary and if i was scottish bloody hell i'd want as far out of that as i can i made the point that scotland's had tory majorities in the past the smpP was once a conservative-leaning party. So you can't guarantee that it won't happen in your own little backyard once you've got rid of the big backyard. But I also said, personally, I believe in class politics, money politics.

I think money and international capitalism, and in particular, unregulated capitalism, is the engine of inequality and the engine of the ills that we are facing. It's financing these disgusting people like Johnson and Trump. But you could get rid of them. You're still going to have unfettered, market-driven capitalism, which is without a conscience. And I said, I'm suspicious of politics based on geography. Well, this is a long way of me getting to the point i made this point and it was the sun on sunday ben comes out against

independence and i stand by my point i'm still suspicious of politics based on geography i believe the people of liverpool and birmingham and london have as much in common with the people of glasgow than they do with the people in the city who are controlling everybody's lives, whatever. Anyway, so I wake up, Sophie rings me, she said, what the fuck have you said? She said, there's like 200 tweets, you know, Ben, keep out of Scotland, go back to Australia, you know, you're a multi-millionaire Englishman, etc. And one of them said, I'm going to go stand outside his gig in Aberdeen and beat the shit out of it and she was like you've got to get security basically a weaponized call out let's get this person can

happen it's as i say it's the only time it's happened to me and it was very brief and nobody did turn up in the car park but it was a bit whoa okay and that's what happens when you get caught in a twitter storm and and it's not pleasant you know, I'm sure everybody of all sorts of political hues have felt that and often feeling very misunderstood, as I felt. Anyway, back to whether there's such a thing. So we dealt with no, I don't think the cancel thing is quite what the Daily Mail wants you to think it is. But there is a lot of bullying and it can affect careers. Look at Jerry Sadovitz getting his gig cancelled, you know. I thought that was a worrying development.

Jerry Sadowitz, Scottish comedian going back to the probably alternative era of the early 80s. Well, it's the days when he did Good 20 Minutes slagging me off. They all have, Louis, they all have. Well, he did a bit about you as well. Oh, my vicious. He was on the front of Time Out throttling my spitting image puppet rick male bought a copy and had it framed for me are you serious they all fucking had a go at me man who else had a go at you i'm not going to list them because it lists too long but they're

famous names but anyway look jerry said let's not get on to people have me because i've been very fortunate in so many ways it sounded so insincere no i have but every time i'm asked to talk about critics be they fellow comedians or newspaper whatever it always comes out as he's very defensive a lot of people say you're a hypocritical shit what do you think about that and he's very defensive in his answers so i don't answer those things anymore but the deary saratovich thing got his gig cancelled because a member of the audience wrote to the theater and said i felt it was raised i'm not really quite sure i think he might have used the P word against South Asians, but I think it was in the context of, not to excuse it,

in the context of, was he having a go at Rishi Sunak? I really don't know. And of course, I'll never know because they cancelled it. It might have been an inverted commas. I mean, this is a good tangent because one of the things that's happened as a paradoxical side effect of being i think laudably conscious of language usage is that sometimes language that's used in quotation marks or ironically gets red flagged which isn't to say it shouldn't but it's quite clearly

a different kind of a usage it should if it's being used well it probably should but one of the one episodes of the young ones i watched to prepare for this, just by coincidence, it was called The Bomb. It was excellent. An atomic bomb lands in the house. I think you remember the one I'm talking about. You wrote it. It's a bird egg in the end. In the end, a little bird hatches out of it.

Yeah, yeah. And halfway through, they kind of for no reason segue into a kind of Dean Martin pastiche on a golf course. Yeah, I hated that. And Nigel Plainer, who plays Neil, he starts singing. It's funny. I mean, it works for me. Nah, it wasn't funny.

You didn't like that bit? Not that bit, no. But anyway, no, look, that's just my opinion, isn't it? Anyway, I did my best with it. I think I just liked anything that felt like it was disrupting the normal beats of a comedy

while also scratching the itch of it feeling like you believe the characters and there's a bit of a story. But the point I was going to make, there's one bit where some old ladies are vandalizing a phone box and one of the bits of graffiti on the phone box is a racial epithet aimed at black people and I watch as well I don't think you do that now because it's I don't remember that we didn't design the sets that definitely wouldn't have been in the script but we probably would have noticed it now better not a

better example but an example I can equate to because i remember it and i know where it came from and one of the times i had a real lesson in the power of language and one i've never forgotten and it's affected my work ever since was in i think probably the first of certainly an early-ish episode lick attempting to look clever and of course looking like a complete fool used i'm not even sure if one can use it anymore, these words, you know, we started with the N word, which we don't use, and then there's the P word. I can say this because I wrote a whole novel based around it. So Rick said, oh, Vivian, what are you?

A spasmo. I saw that, yeah, that was in the bomb as well, funnily enough. You know, there was so much unwitting, you know, of course nobody thought it through. Oh, are you saying this person's got cerebral palsy? But of course, it was an insult to people who communicate differently and motor differently. I wrote that line and I wrote it unwittingly just as an example of a sort of silly schoolboy idiot thinking he's clever when clearly he's not.

So it certainly wasn't making him look clever, but it was using the word. Anyway, we got a number of letters and I got them personally. clearly he's not so it certainly wasn't making him look clever but it was using the word anyway we got a number of letters and i got them personally you know my son has cerebral palsy and and you basically legitimized you now it's going to be even more that that were you know the most popular cult comedian in the country wreck the hero of the kids which he was my god we were huge and i was absolutely banged to rights. I totally understood my mistake. I recognized that it was completely wrong. And I've thought a lot about it. My second novel, the hero or two heroes, one of them was a woman in a wheelchair,

and this is gridlock. The other one was a person with severe cerebral palsy, making his communication extremely difficult and his movement difficult, but his brain because some cerebral palsy, making his communication extremely difficult and his movement difficult, but his brain, because some cerebral palsy effects have meant cognitive powers and some doesn't. And I met someone outside a stage door who had immense physical differences and was very hard to understand for me. But I did eventually realize that he was a PhD in maths. And it made me think how easy it would have been to underestimate him and not wait for him to say. And that's why I wrote this character who kind of wins because everyone underestimates him, because people think he must be stupid because in their eyes he kind of looks stupid.

And that goes back to the whole use of that as an insult. So, yeah, power of language. Immensely important. So linking up to Jerry Rich Sadovitz. Firstly, I believe all comedians, all artists have a duty to self-censorship. I.e. that above all, they know and self be be true don't say something because it'll get a laugh say it if you think it's funny we all know that massaging a collective prejudice bullying picking on a small group saying something so shocking that everybody laughs nervously like i hate this group of people or i hate that you know i saw a comic once who walked on stage and said, I fucking hate midgets.

And it just got a big laugh and some people chapped and whooped. And it clearly wasn't funny. I mean, it really so obviously wasn't funny, but there was, I suppose, something in the supposedly transgressive nature of saying something so awful. I consider that appalling comedy

and I think he should have exercised self-censorship. Would I close his theater? Would I say, you know, he should be actually properly censored? I think that's a very dangerous route. I've always attempted, and this is why I say I don't have a problem with the current culture, because I'm sticking by what I say. I do a routine about trans, about trying to get my head around it, trying to understand what for me is a startling new set of ideas in contradiction to basically everything I

was ever brought up to believe. And I am thinking about it, and I'm thinking thinking it through and I do a routine about that and my kids oh god you're going to get in trouble but I didn't because I think I did it in a sufficiently nuanced and I said well sounds like I'm pissing in my own pocket so I won't keep going but what I'm saying is I don't know what Jerry Sadovich said I've never seen his act except I do know he used to slag me off a lot but from what i can hear i think it's very dangerous that they literally closed his show particularly at the edinburgh fringe festival which is supposed to be where people supposedly push the boundaries or whatever and if those boundaries we should define what we mean by they closed his show i think what happened was some of the people that worked at the theatre,

was it the Pleasants? I don't know who. Said, we're not comfortable with this. They got complaints. This is the kind of thing you're going to have. We're not working here. Oh, was it the employees? I believe so.

Was it like Netflix going against Chappelle? I got the impression the theatre had been written to and they'd been spooked. I think it was comparable. The comparisons are Woody Allen, who had a book that he was going to publish, and then the employees at the publishing house, the younger ones, were saying, we don't want any part of this. And if you, you know, we're not going to work here. Well, far be it from me to condemn collective action.

I'm a lifelong trade unionist. I believe absolutely that the only possible way change can be empowered is through workers using their collective right to withdraw their labour. And I abhor the fact that, you know, it has been a Tory project ever since the idea of unions. Solidarity first came about, the self-evident fact that nobody's going to help you from above. Every single social progression of any sort or worth that has happened in this country, or indeed any country, has come from pressure from below.

You don't get safety at work, you don't get higher wages just because somebody feels nice you get it because you force it so i do believe in collective action but i also believe i don't have to agree with the action and i think when it's based on a moral zealotry i think it has to be interrogated and i think that if they were a group of young people saying we won't be your ushers if you have this man in the theatre then I think perhaps they are not sufficiently thinking about what the job of theatre is and what the job of comedians are that beautiful judgment by the supreme court when the supreme court was a beautiful thing god trump's ruined so many things but there was a judgment on what what amendment is it freedom of speech which america's part of the constitution and it was ruled in america what a beautiful subtle ruling first amendment rights does not give you the right to shout fire in a crowded theater now i think that is a fucking

magnificent and wise so yes we must balance your right to say whatever you want against the safety and the well-being of the community you're saying it in. What a brilliantly graphic way to describe it. So clearly we've now established, well certainly the Supreme Court established the principle that there are instances where freedom of speech must come secondary to the common good. There lies a bag of worms and I think it's all about people of goodwill to try and be sensible about these things and i do think the idea that if you say that vulnerable people will kill themselves i think is a coin you should spend with a great deal more care perhaps than is currently being

spent and i think if you constantly leap to the apocalyptic argument that you not agreeing with me means somebody's going to kill themselves that needs to be interrogated because i think anyone of goodwill recognizes the power of language and the need to consider the environment in which you use it ideas etc but with that comes responsibility and ideas must be explored and you can't say just because i don't agree with you you can't say it you're listening to the Louis Theroux Podcast. Hi, I'm Louis Theroux, and you're listening to the Louis Theroux Podcast. And now, back to my conversation with Ben Elton.

The risk of stating the obvious, there's so many dimensions to this whole debate that can be conflated. And I think one of the reasons the phrase cancel culture isn't helpful is because it just wraps them all up into one big, ugly box. And that's what I was saying. That's my Radio 4 comment. Whereas really, I do think there is a narrative, a plausible narrative to do with the idea of a kind of suffocating ultra-progressive orthodoxy, but there's also a kind of a narrative to do with the idea that anyone has a platform. So we're in a landscape of both the risk of cancellation and also the impossibility of cancellation. I always think like, which comedians do you no longer really hear much from? And I don't know why, maybe because it's sort of your vintage a bit but jim davidson who was a fixture of tv in the 70s and 80s i was like i wonder if he has he been cancelled or is he just too old and he's not working well it turns out he's got his own channel on youtube

i know did you know that i've seen of it because a friend of mine was on it dave thompson who played tinky winky yeah he played tinky winky in what the teletubbies. Yeah, yeah. Anyway. Oh my God. Sorry, carry on. So we're in this strange sort of de-hierarchised world where you will have a voice. I think that whole Twitter world, I'm not on the socials and thank God. I mean, like I think once they've got the bit between their teeth,

there is an absolutism. And my God, if there's one thing we know about human discourse and communication is that there's no absolutes. It's all shades of grey. I mean, the whole debate about identity is that we're all different. There is no absolutes, no binaries, etc. Well, that should also go with arguments. Now, I don't think there are any circumstances where I would use the N-word,

but I wouldn't make a law to say that anybody who does must be categorized with everyone who does i.e the racists who still use it no surely we have to be more nuanced than that and i'm afraid social media just doesn't allow for nuance and it is scary it's a scary situation there is an issue with people willfully weaponizing out of context oversimplified ideas that may or may not have been said, then they've lost any possibility of truth. I talk about it a lot on stage. I say, you know, you can say I'm shit, you can tweet you a board out of your minds, but don't quote me out of context. That's not fair. You can't take one sentence. This is two hours of ideas. And I established my position and possibly

for comic effect, I might then take a separate position and if you take that position out of context that's a wicked and a willfully wicked thing to do and I don't think people necessarily do it willfully but it's happening a million times a second on Twitter did you watch any of Ricky's Ricky Gervais's material I don't watch a lot stand-up because everyone's dealing with the same ideas and I like to keep original. I've never watched much stand-up. I'm not that interested in comedy. I mean, I'm quite interested in it. I'm interested in what I write and what I write isn't fueled by other comedians. I read a lot of journalism and I read a lot of books. I find it a bit boring watching stand-up.

What kind of things do you read? I read mainly history. I love history history i don't read a lot of novels anymore i used to read a lot of novels i'm not on twitter but i used to look up david baddiel's twitter every now and then because he'd often have interesting articles that he'd sort of put up there i don't know how it's done because i'm not on any of this and now they won't let you do it i used to be able to read through his and pick out interesting articles and occasionally do it with marina hyde or whatever who i adore as a wonderful journalist, and she leads you to someone else. But now you have to be on Twitter to scroll through it. It stops you instantly. So maybe I could, can you join under a false name or something

like that? Yeah, just no one needs to know who you are. Just create any old name and you can look at what you like. Lurking, they call that, I believe. Okay, well, I might because I used to lurk and you can't lurk anymore. We should, I mean, I feel like we cover, I'd love to talk a little bit about, I think I mentioned this, but I was born in 1970, you were born in 59. So when I was coming up, The Young Ones was very much the exciting new voice in comedy. It felt like it was kind of generationally ours. It belonged to us.

Yeah. You're my demographic. You're the people that say nice things to me in the street you co-wrote it along with lisa mayer and who was the male rick male yeah was there a creative lead rick and lisa were together lisa was rick's girlfriend today in those days and i read something that said they would write a script and you'd write a script and they'd be sort of squashed together was that the process that's what she said article. I never do the young ones retrospective, so I haven't commented on the young ones in many, many, many years.

Is there a reason why you don't like to look back at that? No, you know, lots and lots of happy memories, and it was very good to us, and it was great to be involved in something which has, you know, made such an impact. But I don't particularly look back on anything. I sometimes hear the process described and it's not how I remember it.

Anyway, look, the writing of Young Ones are really, I've never done it over the last 30 years and I'm not going to do it now. Maybe one day. Maybe we will. Maybe we'll sit down and I'll tell you how I felt about the writing of Young Ones. But yes, I used to write stuff,

they used to write stuff and they used to bolt it together. So tantalising. I always think, yeah, we don't need to talk about that. So it's more tantalising now that you've said you won't, but let's pass on. Which ones do you prefer to talk about then? Blackadder and... No, I don't mind talking about it. I'm really proud of the young ones. I used to love bringing stuff to Rick because he would laugh and laugh. His laugh was the edit. He had such a huge,

rich, friendly laugh. And he was always so generous in his reactions if he liked something he'd let you know we were very close we had a lot of fun those were the days when we still drank and worked i mean that that couldn't go on i mean in the 80s we all drank there'd be young ones rehearsing everyone went to the pub at lunchtime everybody did you'd see the you know the top of the pops dancers were having you know pints of shandy in the lunchtime i think you've got to be pretty young we stopped doing that as we grew up but it had a lot of fun making the album it's not like I don't want to talk about it it was brilliant and it was a team effort and everybody credited on the young ones deserves

their credit 100% reading about that period it's clear that the comedy store was a kind of crucible for a lot of that talent and a kind of gathering spot for the various key personnel. Where was it? It was in a strip club. The first one was the Comedy Store, and that was invented in 1979. Well, invented. It was taken an American idea, the LA Comedy Store, and a guy called Pete Rosengart, who was an insurance salesman

with a big vision, and I'm very grateful to him for what he did. And Don Ward, who ran the Gargoyle Strip Club, also had a vision. He agreed, and they decided to turn over their little stage to a Saturday night alternative comedy gig. You know, so the strippers would finish at 10, and then there'd be a comedy club, and sometimes there was a very confused mix of audiences.

I wasn't there. I was still at university in 79. But Pete Richardson one day did a night of the long knives and basically nicked all the popular acts from the comedy store and invented the comic strip he found another strip club the paul raymond review bar and the comedy store was kind of left with what was left i still wasn't there at this point then i arrived in london late 1980 and i'm looking at this scene and soon afterwards, Rick rang me up and said, I want to talk to you about something. And it was the young ones. And then I was broke and I was signing on

and I decided to become a comic, but they wouldn't admit a comic strip. So I went to the comedy store, which was a bear pit. I mean, a really terrifying place. It was on at 11 o'clock at night on Fridays and Saturdays. It had a few little tables. most of the audience were there because they had a late license in those days getting a drink in London after 11 was so hard we called the police some nights but that's where I developed that kind of very fast talking aggressive style because I quickly became a compare and I was quite good at controlling the room but I did it by kind of shouting and swearing and talking very quickly and not letting anybody have a chance to get a heckle in. And it took me years to learn that I could slow down

and trust the audience not to shout at me if I left a pause. Years. For the first 10 years of my career, I don't think I left a single pause ever. And that was very much the detriment of my timing. And the reason was because for the year I compared the comedy store, you gave them a second. And most of the audience were fine, but there was always 15 blokes somewhere just spoiling for trouble.

It was horrible, absolutely horrible. Not remotely like the comedy stories now, which is like with rows of seats and a regular bill and a tourist attraction. Were you conscious of being a kind of analogue to the punk and new wave scene, you know, the comedy version of that musical wave, you know, of rejecting what you saw as a complacent and retrograde mainstream of kind of bigotry, well, not bigotry, but of entertainers who you didn't like. No, that was very quickly presumed that we were setting ourselves up, me in particular,

because I used to talk about sexism and the difference between carry on whether women are funny and benny hill whether women aren't funny and so there was very quickly this idea that it was a deliberate act of kind of artistic censorship we were trying to blow them away that's so not the case i mean i actually hugely respect benny as a comedian i thought it got lazy and tired and i didn't like the way his eventual shows went but my god his 50s and early 60s work was he was a harry enfield he was a chameleon he could do any face any voice it's strong extraordinary and we loved so much of what went before there was a tweet i think it was mark steel tweeted after rick died so to realize just how important rick was to comedy you've only got to look at basically this shit that the 25 years that preceded him rick loved the 25 years of comedy not everything but most of it we loved it with a crazy gang the

goons the pythons but also the mainstream rick was a tommy cooper obsessive i was as you perhaps know more common wise fanatic i love the two rons dad's army was my favorite sitcom so no i don't think anybody set themselves out to bring anybody down we set ourselves out to express ourselves rick and i their mad surrealism and for me the ideas of comedy like what's funny i was being funny about people trying to be funny about tits and not being very funny that was my joke and it worked people understood it even those who weren't aware that perhaps there was a socio-political principle behind it which is that we live in a really a patriarchy in those days i remember watching an episode of man about the house and being shocked even though i was only 20 or whatever so paula wilcox comes home and the blonde one i've forgotten the name and oh you've

had a busy day yes i've had a busy day oh i had a journey home i couldn't believe it got me bum pinched 20 times and paula's line written by a man was oh can you've had a busy day, yes, I've had a busy day, oh, I had a journey home, I couldn't believe it, I got my bum pinched 20 times. And Paula's line, written by a man, was, oh, can you tell me what number the route was? I'll go on that myself tomorrow. So, all I'm saying is, no, I wasn't trying to cancel the bloke who wrote Man About the House, I love Man About the House, but I also could see what a weirdly fucking misplaced comic concept that was,

that a woman would go, oh, I'd love to go on that bus ride. Yes, there were some battles. Tarby had a go at me, so I had a go at him, and I can't redirect that. Jimmy Tarbuck, Liverpudlian comedian. I keep forgetting you have international outreach, and also you reach younger people. Here's me, basically.

Well, we're trying to translate it for the under-50s. Yeah. So, yes, I did get into a little bit of a, particularly when I got famous, people started having a pop at me, not just my own colleagues, but people like Tarby. He famously had a go. What did he say? He said no comic could be funny under 40. Strange enough, he was 40. I thought, well, what's the rest of your career been like? You've been big for 20 years.

And Ronnie Barker said, you swear too much on. And I never did. So, you know, people resented the new lot and why wouldn't they it's life I've tried to avoid resenting new lots myself because I remember feeling it quite a lot and I had a pop back a few times and I sort of regret all of that I haven't slagged off a fellow artist in many years because I know what it feels like and people presuming they know what you're up to when clearly they don't but But no, long answer yet again, Louis, you have to using up a lot of tape, if tape exists. But no, really hand on heart, nobody thought we were an alternative to any individual.

It was just a change, a change of attitude, a changing of social morals, perhaps because we were already a multicultural society and a society in which women were demanding. I i remember that wonderful bit of graffiti there was a book called spray it loud which was pictures of political graffiti from the 80s and the best one was very famous it was an advert for let's say it was a reno cleo i don't know this one the copy was if this car was a woman you'd'd pinch its bottom. That's right. And the spray was, if this woman was a car, she'd run you over. Do you think, you know, you mentioned Benny Hill, and I want to talk about this gingerly,

because there is a sort of narrative, and if you go on Benny Hill's Wikipedia page, there's an old Ben Elton, not section, but there's a couple of paragraphs. I killed Benny Hill. The idea being that you made a couple of statements, maybe there's one bit you did, I don't know how often you did it, maybe just once. And then a comment maybe on a chat show where you said, I don't think it's funny at a time when women aren't safe walking in the park to have comedy about a middle-aged or an old man chasing them around naked.

And then he was taken off the air. Yeah, but he wasn't taken off the air because of that. I was a fucking 23-year-old comic. I said that on Wogan and I stand by it. I don't think Benny Hill was a rapist and I don't think he was encouraging rape, but he was working in a culture where people weren't noticing extraordinary things.

At the same time this show was on, and I called this out on stage, judges were giving judgments where teenage hitchhikers were literally being blamed for wearing miniskirts while hitchhikers were literally being blamed for wearing miniskirts while hitchhiking there was a judgment where a man raped his babysitter because his wife was pregnant and the judge said well obviously he wasn't getting any from his wife so that's a very difficult time for a man so that's a mitigating circumstance it's not a joke that we lived in a world where judges would with impunity blame women for sexual assault

and i stand by what i said and i think i certainly wasn't having a go at him personally except for one very small footnote to that and don't say that this makes any difference substantively they're chasing him yeah i mean really it's a speed stop motion they're pulling his clothes off and anyway the whole benny hill show the point I was making was a wider issue I was saying not all comedy about jolly sex is sexist I don't think the carry-on films are sexist they can be occasionally but because the women are hilarious and all the people are inadequate grotesques all the men are the long the short and the tall the women are you know that even the sort of supposed drop dead beauty is a brilliant comedian Barbara Windsor who isn't actually that you know she's just a pretty girl but you know it's her

comedy that's brilliant and i said you know carry on is not sexist in my view benny hill has got to a point where the women are entirely decorative are entirely props for jokes and they're not really jokes because it's a repeated scenario over and over again. The reason he lost his serious was because he'd got old and tired and they'd made millions of them and they could just repeat them. Nobody gets that long. I mean, Eric and Ernie were only at the top for about six years. This idea that everybody gets an entire lifetime. Because the narrative is like, and then he died of a broken heart. Well, he actually died of cardiac arrest.

But I've read an article a long time ago. It's like, oh, it's so sad how Benny Hill was sent to the wilderness. Although I think he was in the process of getting back on television when he died. I think it's absolutely ridiculous and offensive, firstly to me and also to the argument I made, which is a legitimate one. Nobody knew the term rape culture nearly 40 years ago when I did that interview. But now we do know about rape culture and we know it's real. And we know that there has been an underlying world of sexual aggression, which is at its most, you might use the term innocent, although it'd be the wrong term, you know, harassment in an office where comments are

made and bottoms are smacked and it used to be considered fun. And then it gets darker and darker as domestic violence, abuse of power power women finding themselves in office with bosses etc all of this is coming out as it fucking well should do and what i was talking about 40 years ago was rape culture even though we didn't use the phrase there i certainly never blamed benny hill for it but i made the point that women's bodies are not taken seriously. I like it. I think I'm on board with that. I liked what you said. I think you've put it very well. And I think, speaking earlier about so-called cancel culture, the people who are opposed to it imagine themselves the victims, right? We all wish to be seen as speaking truth to power, but people disagree

about who they perceive as having the power, right? Yeah, exactly. I stand by what I said. I stand by every single thing I've ever said, but not if taken out of context. Really? Yeah. I think about what I say and I think about what I write. Yeah, but you have evolved as well.

Haven't you evolved? No, I'm sure I've said some stuff that wasn't very funny or whatever, but I don't think I've said stuff I'm ashamed of. I have. I've done lots of things that I look back on and I just think you're an idiot. But I was probably young and foolish. I've done stupid things, climbed on top of bus shelters, went pissed, and I look back and think, oh my God, you know, I could literally have broken my neck. How dare you. Cancelled for that. I wanted to ask, you know, you mentioned being off TV for 15, 20 years,

and it's never occurred to me that you might have been champing at the bit to get back on TV. But when you said that, it made me wonder if you had. And actually, I read a couple of interviews in the wake of last year when you did a one-off Friday Live.

I think it was. It's part of Channel 4's anniversary celebrations. And there was an undernote to some of the interviews you gave, sort of suggesting, oh, I'd love if it came back and I'd love to be doing more of that and I'm thinking well you're Ben Elton you're writing best-selling books you're collaborating on musicals with Andrew Lloyd

Webber and you got films out you know one with Kenneth Branagh recently why would you want to be hosting a show on channel four again I love the art of stand-up and Friday Live was a beautiful thing I love being a compare I love other acts I'm extremely encouraging and enthusiastic to all the acts that come on any show I do and I did a lot of that in the 80s and it's fun it's part of a community the community I like actors and I like comics I mean I might not watch them much the comics but I like being a part of the world and I certainly watch them when they're on my show and I try and encourage with laughter and it's fun it's a part of what I do and look after 98 I did a show in 98 which was like a man from arty it was called the Ben Elton show but it was effectively the third show at the man from arty and I thought I'll come back two

years later and they'll give me another show because I'd had the inestimable privilege of the previous 10 years when whenever I wanted to do a show, I got one. It was extraordinary. It seemed like that's how it is. I'm sure that's how it felt with Benny Hill and Morecambe and Wives. And then I came back in like 2001 or 2 and said, well, I'm ready to do another series now. And things had passed on.

The office had happened. There was a sort of... Who would you talk to? Was it Alan Yentob in those days? No, I think it was Peter Fincham. I remember once, maybe this was a bit later, when I said, look, I'm a good comparer. I don't mind bringing on mainstream acts.

I love mainstream acts. But I'll introduce Bobby Davro and I'll do a bit of politics. Let's mix it all up. Oh, my God. You were trying to plead your credentials for relevance by citing Bobby Davro. No, I'm not even sure I said that. But I'm just saying, I was saying,

I'd love to do another show and I'm a good comparer. I think that's a skill I have. And he said, I think it had looked very 1980s which you know I thought was a bit mean but you get your time and you can't cry about it I'm lucky I've got other gigs so I can go off you know as you say I love musical theatre I was in musical theatre as a youngster and I've always loved it and I love writing novels and I can go on the road and people will still come and see me so I didn't need to tell you but I did love it and anyway I I couldn't get a gig for a long time I did a prince's trust show where I was deemed far too rude and basically I was in the wilderness as a performer but did it

hurt no I genuinely didn't feel any I didn't take any personal offense and I didn't feel any sadness partly because I'm a writer principally and I can go back to my desk and so I didn't feel any sadness, partly because I'm a writer principally and I can go back to my desk. And so I didn't have that loneliness, particularly comics who don't write their own material or need writers. That's a terribly precarious world to be in. And if you then go out of fashion as well, it must be a very lonely, bleak world. But I'm not that. I'm a writer. I know the world doesn't owe me a living. I know that Eric and Ernie were already on the slide when Eric died. It happens. If you're lucky enough like me to have three or four different ways of expressing yourself creatively, you're very fucking lucky and you should count your blessings and not moan about it. And I knew I was in the wilderness, but everybody goes in the wilderness. There is no career that is without its ups and downs. You're listening to the Louis Theroux Podcast. Hi, me again, Louis Theroux.

Just to remind you, you're listening to The Louis Theroux Podcast. And now, back to my conversation with Ben Alton. Most recently, sitcom-wise, you've made Upstart Crow, which is a very funny, kind of Blackadder-esque, in some respects, comedy based on Shakespeare. I say that because it's sort of period piece. With a modern awareness, with modern sensibilities. And quite broad, wonderfully broad, like just big laughs, big silly laughs in a good way. And then in a totally different key, you wrote the film which Kenneth Branagh directed and starred in, All Is True.

the film which Kenneth Branagh directed and starred in, All Is True. I mean, we could talk a bit about Shakespeare, but what struck me was when I was watching All Is True last night, it's after he's written his last play and he's sort of gone back to Stratford and he feels sad about the loss of his son. And he's also sort of pining for some sense of status in the world. And he's visited by an old friend. He's like, he doesn't feel valued. And his friend is like, you're fucking Shakespeare. What do you care? Like you wrote King Lear. And he says, I care because it matters. Well, in England, it matters. I have what I have upon my own merit. And for that, I am suspect. Perhaps I'll always be suspect, but I have my money and I have my houses.

And then I was watching that and I was like, that's Ben. That's Ben thinking that. He's using Shakespeare as an avatar, but maybe that's not the case at all. Well, certainly not the money and the houses bit. I'm very glad to be comfortable and I feel perfectly relaxed about how I deal with my money and it's not as much as some people think it is and it's a lot more than I ever dreamt I would make. 70 million is what it says on the internet.

Are you kidding me? Is that what it says? Yeah. Well, if I'm worth a seventh of that, I'd be surprised. It's outright. But that's the same with everybody. When you read, honestly, I'm telling you the truth, mate. My manager always says, why don't you just buy it?

Well, he said, no, it's 100 million. People will laugh. People like that. The British will be proud. You always look so mealy-mouthed denying it. I can't stop being honest. I'm always honest. And I know it annoys people.

Because, yeah, if I say it's a 7, what, you're worth 10 fucking million? You're complaining. No, I'm not complaining. I'm just saying it's not 70 million. No, but that's not really where I was going with it. It was more the case that I wondered whether, and one or two other quotes once where you said,

I never had a honeymoon period, like with regard to the press. And I think you've spoken about having maybe um an end well not from your end as such but an antagonistic relationship with the press and a feeling of maybe just being ill-used somewhat by the press yes but you can't moan about it because then you get told you're oversensitive and you're ungrateful and of course anybody who gets told that they're this or that it's hurtful and when it's like a lot of people and there's a general phalanx of opinion and it's been granted the dignity of being in print and it did go on for a very long time but it's stopped now you know i'm sure i'll still get some more bad reviews but they're not obvious anymore it used to be that it just would be you know thin blue line massive popular success i mean beyond castigated sitcom very beloved you know i should

be sure i mean so i've had we will rock you the mirror said you should be shot that's right but upstart crows had good reviews right yes things have changed things have changed and it's nice and maybe they were right maybe it was all shit until i was 60 yes i've had a lot of bad reviews i've had some good ones the thing i've always objected to most is the idea that there's some hypocrisy in being successful and standing up and speaking about social values and social justice and yeah talking about the fact that i think we'll all be better off if we have a party that sees itself as beholden to the community and not to the individuals that fund it. I don't consider the way I live to be a begrudging. I think I've been consistent. I'm not a communist. I don't believe in state-controlled socialism. Of course, I understand competition is required, the market

is required, but unfettered, unregulated markets will result in the jungle. And that's where we've arrived at. We had quite good capitalism after the war. We had the post-war consensus. We had the idea that the community is the health of all. Yeah, mixed economy. That's what the Scandis do, isn't it? And we did it. We did it for a while. You know, Atlee shifted the centre ground of British politics firmly to the left, and every subsequent Conservative government had to accept that. Basically, for 25 years, the Tories accepted that the centre ground of British politics was centre left. The NHS, the World First, etc., etc. And Thatcher shattered the post-war consensus and moved, as Reagan did in America, they had the post-Roosevelt New Deal consensus, which had lasted 30 years.

And simultaneously, Reagan and Thatcher took on this idea that community is paramount and it's the job of government no matter whether it leans towards supply-side economics or it leans towards welfare etc it is the job of government to maintain the health of the whole community and he introduced the new idea it's the job of government to enable individuals to enrich themselves and thereby they will enrich the communities which of course they won't so that's my politics it always has been and i don't think it's changed stewart lee once famously did a lengthy rant on me concluding that i was worse than osama bin laden because he at least had a consistent moral outreach now i think that's an outrageous thing to say because i think i've been consistent with my politics and my comedy all my

life and asama bin laden was a mass murderer i guess he'd say that's the joke right because you're so obviously not worse yeah but it wasn't because he basically was a pretty heavy anyway look i swear i wasn't going to do this louis i don't want to talk about this slag me off you started with my shakespeare quote and no i don't consider the extreme good fortune i've had in being as financially secure as i am to be something that i can like go well fucking hell that'll show them that's not how i judge my work i judge my work by whether i'm good or not but i would say in the spirit i can't remember who he's talking to can you like he's talking to to the Earl of Southampton and Shakespeare is very different to me, but I saw similarities, but some differences.

What I thought was fascinating about Shakespeare, both for the comedy in Upsart Crow and the very serious, well, the reflective drama of All Is True. I believe Shakespeare was a naturally conservative person who was also a creative genius. But because he wasn't spiky because he wasn't angry or rude people underestimated him and had done ever since i've always said to me

shakespeare and marlo are like lennon and mccartney people love marlo because he was a nasty bastard he was a murderer he was a spy he was a hypocrite he was a chancer and he was also a brilliant writer and now you look at Lennon McCartney two geniuses who enabled the greatest cultural force of the 20th century for which alone I am lucky to be alive the Beatles but Lennon has always been loved because he was rude to people and he was chippy and he was difficult and you've got paul mccartney who unarguably is a genius of equal cosmic level in my view and yet because he obviously likes to be liked and he's a little bit needy and he wants to be polite and he takes the trouble somehow people find that a little bit suspect and for years it's changed again now like it has a bit for me i suppose people are finally forgiving him for sort of just not being as chippy you know and

as nasty as john could be who is also somebody i worship you know i'm glad i lived on the same planet and got to enjoy the work of john lennon but i think shakespeare had the same problem and i maybe i've got the same if people can see you want to be liked, then you're in trouble. And I've explored it a lot in my work on Shakespeare, because I think he was. He's far more conservative than me, I think. But I think I do share with him, not the talent, but I do share with him a desire to fit in.

I mean, he bought a coat of arms, you know, famously. He wanted people to... Which is brought to life in All Is True. And Southampton makes fun of him. This sort of shingle that says you are kind of ersatz aristocracy. It's like getting a personalised number plate or something. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to have to rush for a piss.

I'm sorry, I'd like to say goodbye. Well, if you need to dash now, I know us older gents can't always... I'm desperate. The grommets get frayed. They don't work like they used to. You'll be still there in a minute. So there you have it. The grommets get frayed.

The plumbing doesn't work like it used to. Welcome to middle age. What a great chat. And credit to Ben. I think he is a congenital sharer, a sort of discloser of his innermost thoughts, like he's someone who can't help himself. He speaks what's on his mind, and that's wonderful. So I owe him a debt of gratitude for having that long form chat with me. And it was a real, I think I said this,

and it was a pleasure to speak to someone for whom I've always held such admiration, especially because when I was growing up, you know, at a tender age, he was someone whose work I very much admired. Ben Ted to me, I think afterwards, like he made a promise to himself not to complain and not to reflect any pain he's felt at the critical brickbats that have been thrown his way over the years. He's definitely, for complicated reasons, had his share of criticism. They all had a go at me, was the phrase he used. Stuart Lee compared him to

Bin Laden. Stuart Lee is sort of the pope of left-wing comedy now, but that role was previously occupied by Ben Elton. And Stuart Lee, I think, gave it the most unalloyed expression, that sort of sense of people feeling betrayed. And I think on Ben's side, I just think, you know, don't we all sort of have those little voices and those feelings of peak, but we do our best to suppress them because we know it's probably not a good look. With Benny's struggles, you know, he's so honest and open about his feelings and thoughts that it just spills out. Oh, yeah. Jerry Sadowitz. This is from Wikipedia. His 2022 Edinburgh Fringe show was cancelled after one night because staff members and reportedly audience members at the Pleasance Theatre found the material incredibly offensive. According to this, it was both.

The venue later clarified this was due to racism, sexism, homophobia and misogyny. This is all in quote marks and that the material presented at his first show is not acceptable and does not align with our values. Sadowitz defended himself against those who made the decision, accusing them of, quote, cheapening and simplifying his act. In the aftermath of the show being cancelled, his tour of the UK saw increased ticket sales and a date being added at London's Hammersmith Apollo. Make of that what you will. I subsequently went off and read, well, I'm still reading it, a biography of Benny Hill. It was striking that Ben Elton, almost like a witchfinder general of comedy, putting Benny out of business. That was such a seductive narrative, people didn't care to examine it. But in fact, those later shows had become pretty bad. That's basically

what I picked up from a book that overall is deeply sympathetic to Benny Hill. So I think Ben, it's confusing, they're both called Ben. So I think Ben is off the hook. He's very much off the hook. That's how I'm ruling. If I had a gavel, I would hammer it down now. Exonerated. A revival of his Queen musical, We Will Rock You, is at the London Coliseum until the end of August. I haven't seen it, but I'd like to. Ben has made his acting West End debut in the musical. He commented, I am absolutely thrilled to be joining the incredible London Coliseum cast in the role of the rebel leader. The character is a massive Queen fan, rock tragic and general old fart who still plays air guitar to his bedroom mirror. So basically I'm perfect for the role. My ambition is to nail all the laughs and not mess up my song. That's very

cool. Since we recorded, Ben's Channel 4 show Friday Night Live won a BAFTA, so congratulations for that. He's already won three BAFTAs for Best Comedy Series for the Young Ones, Blackadder the Third and Blackadder Goes Fourth. So there you go, this would be a fourth. I'm trying to think of other Australian words that end in O. Arvo, we did. Bottle-o, that's the liquor store. They call it a bottle-o. Salvo, that's what the Salvation Army's called. Smoko, that's a morning break for workers.

Servo, nickname given to petrol service stations. There's loads. Biffo, it's a fight. Devo, devastated. Hospo, hospitality. Prego, pregnant. OK, that's enough. This podo...

This podo, mate? This podo was produced by Paul Cobraco and Man Al-Yazirio. It was exec-prodoed by Aaron Fellows, eh? It doesn't really work if the word is long. Special and long overdue mention goes to Nigel Appleton, who mixed and fixed all the episodes in this series, including this one. Sorry, Nigel. It was Paul's fault. The production manager was Francesca Bassett

and the music in this series is by Miguel de Oliveira. It's a Mindhouse Prado, exclusively for Spotify. Oh.