Ben Elton, Fuck off we’re full! Irrational Hatreds #3

You know who shits me? Ben Fucking Elton. How long can one man rely on Margaret Thatcher being a cunt and writing some of Blackadder? Blackadder gets you some slack for bringing out one crap book, but surely not thirteen. He was cringeingly bad on GNW last week, and then the prick apologises to the Queen for jokes that weren’t even offensive AND moves to Fremantle permanently. He’s trying to make Tim Winton look good.

About AHC McDonald

Comedian, artist, photographer and critic. From 2007 to 2017 ran the culture and satire site The Worst of Perth
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223 Responses to Ben Elton, Fuck off we’re full! Irrational Hatreds #3

  1. Bento says:

    I thoroughly enjoyed Stark, at the time. Gridlock was okay, and the rest is absolute tosh.

    FOWF, Ben, FOWF.

    Like

  2. Onanist says:

    How do you think I feel?

    My name is one letter different from Tim Winton’s and I have been told I look like Ben Elton.

    Both their names in one post is almost too much for me to bear.

    Like

  3. skink says:

    in his defence, the recent fuss about him was generated by the Daily Mail, who like to villify anyone who doesn’t fit their cosy view of English society.

    Jan Moir’s piece about the death of Steven Gately was about as low as you can go.

    anyone criticised by The Mail is a hero in my book, although I agree that Stark was pants.

    and don’t forget the musicals – truly toe-curlingly awful.

    apparently he is working with Lloyd-Webber on a sequel to Phantom of the Opera.

    Phantom 2: The Organ Strikes Back, perhaps

    Like

  4. poor lisa says:

    New category:
    Worst foreign entertainer who lives in perth & gets undue press time for being a foreign entertainer. I mean doesn’t them living in Perth just scream that they’re washed up?

    Ben Elton
    Guy from the Shadows
    Richard Burton’s widow
    Guy who played in the Clash for 10 minutes in their decline and now owns wanky clothes shops
    Guy from Sky

    Yeah Ben Elton wins.

    Like

  5. skink says:

    again, in his defence, Elton has been living here, off and on, for more than a decade without anyone noticing (until the solar panels)

    as with most of that list, they come to Perth for a quiet life with their families out of the limelight. It’s not like they are shouting “look at me, look at me” and showing up to “A List’ parties to mix with the weather girls

    Like

    • poor lisa says:

      Yeah I don’t really care about Ben Elton, although he should stop trying to pretend to be cutting edge. I guess the worst was more about the perth media than the foreign subjects.
      That said, I don’t want the tea party and their sub-Doors ilk allowed in. Fuck off we’re full of bad bands already.

      Like

  6. Jasper says:

    Blind Faith was pure genius and anyone caught up in this blogosphere should at least read it and/or appreciate it.

    Like

  7. Bento says:

    Anyone who says ‘blogosphere’ is clearly a cunt.

    Like

  8. Snuff says:

    I notice Stephen’s returned to the UK, probably to hang out with Nick.

    Like

  9. Cingiali says:

    You used to be funny too, until you started saying cunt every second word.

    Like

  10. David Cohen says:

    I note Ben has about 1800 Facebook fans, but Tim has about 7500.

    How many does TLA have?

    Like

  11. Zarquon says:

    Bah. You didn’t mention The Young Ones.

    Like

  12. shazza says:

    Once I get my Book Club book out of the way, I intend to move onto Ben’s, The First Casualty. Any opinions on this novel?

    Like

    • Orbea says:

      largely unbelievable detective crime fiction set in the trenches of WW1
      suffice to say the title is very descriptive of the plot and theme

      Like

  13. Anonymous Perthon says:

    As I see it, when Ben Elton was part of the emerging comedy scene he had the perspective to analyse and critique the establishment, the yuppies, the thatcherites and added a great deal of knob jokes – he was pretty good at making the funny. Then he got rich and lost the perspective, became part of the establishment. All he was left with were the knob jokes.
    Moral of the story for you LA, don’t get rich because you lose the funny.

    Like

  14. Anonymous Perthon says:

    Shazza, you are absolutely right. I now submit a new theory that he just got lazy.

    Like

  15. phreestyle says:

    TWOP. The whipper snipper of fame.

    Like

  16. Ljuke says:

    Yeah, this post has a certain amount of tall poppy syndrome to it. Tall, sell-out-who-writes-boring-shit poppies. Do you think Ben Elton & Brian May spend nights cuddling, telling each other that they’re still cutting edge and important?

    Like

  17. rolly says:

    78 (now 79) comments on an entirely irrelevant topic by a mob of wanna-be’s who are even less relevant…………..

    Has to be a worst of the worsts.

    Like

  18. Cookster says:

    Christ, I’ve read all of the Elton novels except his latest. Expect him to soon be making appearances at the North Fremantle Centre on Stirling Hwy as the club patron.

    I’d like to see a TLA v Elton face-off…

    Like

  19. skink says:

    Pam Castlearse was back in Teh West today bagging Ben Elton.

    what the fuck is she doing back?

    I thought we had said ‘good riddance’ to her, only to find her parrotting the Daily Mail saying ‘good riddance’ to Elton leaving the UK.

    so what happened?

    did they realise that nobody can do that smug mummsy Daily Mail Hyacinth Bucket suburban self-righteousness quite like Pam?

    Like

  20. kate says:

    Oh dear, I actually really liked Stark and This Other Eden. Then it all went horribly wrong. But, in fairness, if I had anything to do with Blackadder I’d probably coast on it for the forseeable future too.

    Like

  21. skink says:

    not what I meant to post

    try this:

    Like

  22. Frank Calabrese says:

    Speaking of Fremantle and it’s environs, this is NOT how to promote the Greens Uranium Policy.

    Like

  23. orbea says:

    Didn’t the Labor bloke Ben W want nukes and was told to keep quiet? and hasnt peter garrett approved a new nuke mine? Martin Ferg wants nukes as well. At least the Greens have a consistent policy on nukes.

    How does the ALP promote their nuclear policy Frank?

    Like

  24. orbea says:

    I’m all for transparency, especially in glass houses.

    Like

  25. richarbali says:

    Have been holidaying for ten days now and it has gotten the point of needing to do something else so I thought I might share a story with youse about Ben Elton.
    Sure it probably won’t fit the Twop policy but the wolves haven’t had much to howl about lately so here is a bone to chew on for a while.

    A few years ago, I think 96, I spent a couple of months traveling around Pakistan and found myself in the the Chitral region of the the North West Frontier Province.
    The area currently occupied by those notoriously unhumorous cunts, the Taliban.
    Staying a backpacker hostel that would horrify Bin Laden I struck up a friendship with an English couple that were traveling across the sub continent on motorcycles, she on a 72 Triumph Bonneville and he on a AJS for fucks sake!
    Anyway the next morning I was woken at about five in the morning by the sounds of gunfire, at first a few random shots with a hand gun and then a rifle or two which then was joined by various semi autos, within minutes there were AK 47,s being emptied without pause and then it seemed like the whole town joined in.There was literally hundreds of guns being fired and countless thousands of ammo being shot.
    I laid in bed trying to make sense of it all before coming to the conclusion that the army must being having a training execise or something but the sound of bullets falling on the roof convinced me that they were firing into the air which meant a celebration of some kind.
    Turns out that Beneziar Bhutto had been deposed as PM and the locals were simply expressing their joy at this event. Just another day in Pakistan!

    By six oclock the fun was over and it was going to be difficult to keep up the same level of excitement so I decided to borrow a book from the English couple, it was “This Other Eden”. Despite having a brief fascination with the Young Ones I had never heard of Ben Elton but I was instantly absorbed by this book. Better still I had only six hours to read it before giving it back because they were leaving so it got my full attention, maybe it was the intense concentration or maybe the hash but I thought that book was the best thing I had read for years and I still do.

    Like

    • cookster says:

      Nice yarn and I have to say, I’ve been reading Elton’s books ever since I was a purple overall wearing hippy arts student living in a ramshackle house on the cliffs over the river in North Freo.

      Indeed, I believe Stark was a composite of the many house mates who spent time in the notorious Phyllis Street ‘shacks’ in the mid 80s.

      Indeed, Ben frequented many a party hosted by Cookster Snr who began the Phyllis St tradition.

      Like

  26. skink says:

    From The Guardian’s feature; “People who ruined teh decade No. 5”

    BEN ELTON Turned rock history into a ‘jukebox musical’ cash cow:

    “The Matrix meets the Arthurian legend meets Terminator 2,” was how Ben Elton hilariously described his Queen musical when it debuted in 2002. A more honest commentator might have pegged We Will Rock You as being a bit like Suzi Quatro directing a particularly stupid episode of Deep Space Nine using a cast entirely drawn from the Camden branch of Fresh & Wild. By blowing off any regard for plot, cliche or character arc, Elton took the genteel traditions of musical theatre and rock’s outsider chic, and served them up as a mindless MOR smoothie. Marketing men realised there were plenty more theatregoers too old to rock’n’roll, yet too dumb for Sondheim. And so, as Tonight’s The Night et al followed the idiot-proof recipe drawn up by WWRY and its close predecessor, Mamma Mia!, Elton – rather wisely – relocated to Australia. Now, if you stand in the West End on a Saturday night and tune out the muffled chorus of Hoover salesmen singing Bohemian Rhapsody, you can hear Theatreland creaking towards a new cultural low

    Like

  27. Frank Calabrese says:

    And Here is Young Beb on Stateline.

    http://www.abc.net.au/news/video/2010/02/19/2825346.htm

    Like

  28. I know I’m described as anti success, and a looser, but what about that Ben Elton show eh?
    http://mumbrella.com.au/ben-elton-live-from-planet-earth-dead-on-arrival-39238

    Like

  29. Pingback: Dick Payne | The Worst of Perth

  30. The Legend 101 says:

    Channel 31 is SBS1 if you didnt know that.

    Like

  31. Citizencains says:

    Blimey, all this bile about poor old Benny Elton. In his time he was a great comedy writer who buoyed the British people through the dark, dark days of Thatch; enlivening the Young Ones, saving Blackadder from being merely an OK show and doing pretty decent stand-up routines with the rest of the British Friday/Saturday Live crew – in those day he had a shiny suit and long black hair. What I saw last night was, partly, a rehash of those earlier shows, the Girl Flat sketch looked like a cross between the Young Ones and Sex in the City, both of which were funnier.
    Perhaps you haven’t heard of The Man From Auntie, a show format that looked strikingly like the one on Channel 9, if only it’s been on ABC it could’ve been the Man From Auntie Again. It was after this show that Mr Elton turned to writing, I think he couldn’t be bothered with comedy anymore. I tried his book Stark, which was OK, but it didn’t really work. Then he went for We Will Rock You that was the very end for me.
    As I’m new here I’m surprised about the amount British programming on Australian TV, especially comedy, it feels like I’ve moved here to watch more of the BBC, even the Goodies are still on and funnier than Benjamin Charles Elton.

    Like

    • Well welcome citizen. Many UK expats here. The musicals are truly awful. Surely he has enough money that he doesn’t have to…wel, be crap now.

      Like

      • Citizencains says:

        Thanks for that, I’ll feel at home here. Even the thought of the musicals is wrong. Your last sentence reflects my sentiments exactly, can’t we summon up the young Ben Elton to plead with the current one to, ‘Please, please stop’, in a whiney voice to camera. He used to do that sort of thing so well.

        Like

        • Natalia Fan #1 says:

          the Young Ones and Sex in the City, both of which were funnier

          ouch – YO aside, it’s pretty hard to be funnier than SntC

          can’t we summon up the young Ben Elton to plead with the current one to, ‘Please, please stop’, in a whiney voice to camera

          if only – so well put

          Like

  32. shazza says:

    The Goodies made a recent come back, they have not been playing continually since the 70’s.

    Like

    • And some of the shows are magnificent, and some are well, embarrassingly racist. But you know, yoni and Lingham eh?

      Like

      • Citizencains says:

        Yes, some of the episodes were classics; Kitten Kong, Kung Fu Kapers, Bunfight at the O.K. Tea Rooms et al. Their dedication to visual comedy was admirable but the appearance of the shows is a bit dated.
        I was about nine when the Goodies started and I’d been watching Monty Python from its start the previous year so I think the racist elements passed me by. Certainly in comparison with other programmes of its era, the anachronistic Black and White Show – which the Goodies lampooned, Love Thy Neighbour – intended as a critique of racism but now widely regarded as racist or any of the stand-up comedians of that time. It is perhaps more the case that they relied on clichéd stereotypical characterisation rather than overt racism. Those sorts of things are still around today – Mike Myers Fat Bastard being a case in point – and will remain an easy comedic option.
        Hmm…, seemed to have slipped into a critical analysis of comedy of the seventies, that wasn’t what I intended. I came in here looking for the worst pub in Perth. Any suggestions?

        Like

    • Citizencains says:

      I was being a bit facetious about the Goodies, sorry. They were not repeated for years in the UK , much to their chagrin. Forever in the shadow of their mates in Monty Python I fear.

      Like

  33. The Legend 101 says:

    yeah that sucks why is that channel 11 is 12.

    Like

  34. perthluckystar says:

    Not to incite more irrational hatred, but did anyone else have the misfortune to hear him bleating about his show on 94.5 this morning. My other half flicked the radio stations and settled on there, so I had no choice but to listen to him whinge how the network was running late and caused people to switch off before the show already began. He was pretty much comparing himself to the Young Ones, making a comment along the lines of, “If the Young Ones had been subjected to Twitter, they would have been finished in seconds”, when someone commented on the poor reviews. Of course it had nothing to do with the fact that the show was genuinely not funny. The morons hosting the breakfast show seemed to be patting him on the back, like “Poor you Ben, I’m sure you’ll do better this week. We love you, even if the public don’t.”

    Like

    • Bill O'Slatter says:

      Well he aint Tim Mincin , nuddied up with the Bummingham Phillymoany Norkestra, that’s for sure.

      Like

      • RubyRuby says:

        But he had Timbo on tonight, singing a lullaby. He had to read a disclaimer beforehand, though. I think that may have been an attempt at comic effect. Hmm. When did Tim turn into a blond version of Russell Brand?

        Like

  35. skink says:

    ‘Ben Elton hits back at critics’

    but then invokes Godwin’s Law

    fail

    http://www.watoday.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/elton-hits-back-at-critics-20110215-1auen.html

    Like

    • Natalia Fan #1 says:

      “I do think this idea that something has to be judged instantly sort of gladiatorial thumb up or thumb down is astonishing. You couldn’t do that to a good album, you couldn’t do that to a good film. And you can’t do that to comedy.”

      It’s precisely in regards to the desirable immediacy of live comedy that we should do that Ben. And how dare he compare himself to Shakespeare. Cunt.

      Like

    • RubyRuby says:

      Channel 9 has it on again tonight?

      fail

      Like

      • RubyRuby says:

        So, I watched the second half. I’ve been drinking and I’m on some strong medication. The funniest bit was how Elton kept saying that it was 100% Australian content, but he was the one hogging the mike.

        Sweet sleep, where are you, to deliver me from care?

        Like

    • shazza says:

      Youre such a biatch sometimes.

      Like

    • Rolly says:

      The pommie git wants to be funny??
      He could do worse than take a look at the audience capturing skills of Adam Hills.
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NxpkgqBSOPY&NR=1 as a small token.

      Like

      • Bill O'Slatter says:

        That’s a Richard Cheese routine. He’s tinkling away on the piano ” I’m a creep, I’m a weirdo” when he turns to the audience, and says in a confidential tone ” You know I’ve got an artificial penis ?”

        Like

  36. golden1 says:

    I heard Ben Elton on the radio yesterday reminding everyone to tweet and facebook their friends after the show to tell them how funny it was while making such a virtue of the fact that it’s live, live, live – did he mention it was all live and the only live comedy sketch show in the world? Plus it’s live and also live to air.
    The thing is I don’t get why it has to be live, it doesn’t make it funnier (or even funny) and only adds a breathless quality to the show in general and expressions of “thank god we got through that without fucking it up” to the faces of the actors at the end of every sketch.

    Like

    • Citizencains says:

      Quite right, the emphasis on the live aspect of the show is wasted on us here in Perth anyway. The pressure to produce a show like that undermines the consideration needed to create better comedy. I still he’s harking back to the good old days of Friday/Saturday Live – where the burden was shared more equally with the other performers – in the format of his later shows where he was the centre of attention. I voted with my bottom and stayed at the computer working rather than watch the second show.

      Like

    • He can use some boned jokes now. At home.

      Like

      • Russell Woolf's Lovechild says:

        Well that took two weeks too long. Shame – I thought they had literally taken to Ben Elton with an axe. Now that would have been funny.

        Like

    • orbea says:

      I laughed at some of his jokes last week, and the Elaine character is worthy of more of a go. Disappointing they couldnt run this harder and give him more of achance to really end his career of LIVE did we tell it was live TV with costume changes and everything?
      So will Ben be compering a comedy show at the North Freo bowl club anytime soon?
      And will the Gare tribe be there.

      Like

      • BrownBook says:

        I’m pretty sure it wasn’t live-to-air, but recorded/performed live during the week (ie no cuts or re-takes).

        Anyway, it totally stank last night, or at least the 10 minutes that I wasted on it. They couldn’t even manage to find a studio audience that would laugh.

        Like

  37. skink says:

    this would never have happened to Shakespeare etc.

    I note that Ben Elton was commissioned for six episodes

    Christopher Marlowe only wrote six plays, and was then stabbed in the eye in a pub brawl

    just saying

    Like

    • Natalia Fan #1 says:

      For some reason the phrase “Talk about Oscar Wilde!” springs to mind.

      Like

      • Onanist says:

        Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde (16 October 1854 – 30 November 1900) was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London’s most popular playwrights in the early 1890s. Today he is remembered for his epigrams, plays and the tragedy of his imprisonment, followed by his early death…

        Like

    • Sharon says:

      Thanks Orbea, this seems like a fair and reasonable analysis to me. I hate The Family Guy. Watched it once for about 10 mins then couldnt go on.

      Like

    • skink says:

      I saw a trailer for Adam Hills show. Tony Martin was a guest and was billed as ‘comedy genius Tony Martin’
      I like him, but he’s no genius, unless it’s said in an Arnold Schwarzenegger voice:
      ‘Tony, he’s a cheenius’

      Like

    • Bill O'Slatter says:

      Martin has turned into an old fart himself.

      Like

  38. skink says:

    we scored free tickets to a preview of Ben Elton’s Gasp and fuck me, it’s dreadful.
    He’s recycled a play he wrote in 1990, relocated it to Australia, thrown in some ‘topical’ gags about Tim-Tams and ‘commie lezzies at the ABC’, and passed it off to Black Swan as a ‘new Australian work’. When we got home we carbon-dated one joke as being from Doctor at Large 1957.
    Typical zinger: ‘I remember the day we first met at the cricket and I tried to kiss you on the oval.’
    That joke was used FOUR TIMES in the first act.

    Like

We can handle the worst