Self-flagellation for fun and profit – talking to Ben Elton

Reading Ben Elton’s autobiography What Have I Done, I was struck by two things. Firstly, the amount of pain he has experienced via bad reviews – while acknowledging that bad reviews go with the territory. And secondly, his own sometimes lacerating self-criticism, especially when it comes to work done in collaboration.

My podcast co-host Abigoliah and I had the opportunity to talk to him in person for our podcast recently and some of these same themes surfaced. We weren’t arsehole enough to ask him about bad reviews, and as I say, bad reviews are things which any artist of any kind is going to receive after a while. Ask John Cleese about Richard Ingrams and Fawlty Towers just to pick another random example.

But the theme of “this wasn’t what I imagined it to be” comes through very strongly on both Blackadder and The Young Ones – two of his biggest successes and two of the comparatively few times he wrote in collaboration.

On Blackadder, he was recruited by Richard Curtis to add some anarchic vinegar to the rather bland first series, so he’s arguably the junior partner, although this seems to have been a thoroughly equal meeting of comedy professionals, who have enormous respect for each other’s work.

He has less time for the agonising rehearsal process which saw, especially he thinks Blackadder’s Christmas Carol, made much less funny than it was on the page. Before we go on, it’s also worth pointing out that he’s often very generous about actors’ performances – citing Rik Mayall, Stephen Fry, Rowan Atkinson and especially Miranda Richardson who elevated his words far beyond their initial comic potential.

But it’s with The Young Ones that things get tricky. Here’s the story as I’ve come to understand it. Some of this is in our podcast, some of it is in Ben’s book, some of it is in both places. Paul Jackson approaches Rik, Ade, Nigel Planer and Peter Richardson and says “write me a sitcom and I’ll get you a pilot.” Rik approaches Ben Elton and says “write us a sitcom and I’ll get it to Paul Jackson.” When the pilot becomes a series, Rik says to Ben “We’re writing this together – you, me and Lise (Mayer, Rik Mayall’s then-partner).” (What happened to Peter Richardson is another story.)

It’s probably futile to try and unpick who wrote what, but a decent guess would be that Rik’s contribution is a lot of the slapstick which can also be seen in Bottom. Lise has talked about being keen on the surrealism. And that leaves Ben as the comedy technician, working on the characters and hammering it all together. Except, it was usually Lise who synthesised the different versions of the script into a final document. At which point, Ben gave up and started developing his stand-up career.

He does say that it was a monster hit and you can’t argue with a hit. Whereas Filthy Rich and Catflap, where he got his own way from FADE IN to THE END was widely disliked. But lightning doesn’t always strike and a string of subsequent successes proves that he doesn’t need a helping hand to make something special.

But I do find it fascinating that some of his greatest achievements are some of the things he was least happy with.

Our interview contains much else besides, such as who his biggest comedy influences were (which might surprise you) and a fascinating discussion between him and Abigoliah about whether stand-up comedy can ever truly be written.

Download it now wherever podcasts are sold.