Ben Elton

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety six, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My Castaway this week is a writer and comedian. To television audiences, he's familiar as The Man from Auntie, a stand-up comic who is loud, fast, and iconoclastic. But behind the quick fire delivery and naughty gags lurks a more thoughtful personality, a successful novelist, playwright, and television scriptwriter, with shows like The Young One's Black Adder and The Thin Blue Line to his credit. All his books have sold well, but his latest popcorn has been highly acclaimed by the critics. Still not yet forty, he feels he may be mellowing a little, able to respond at last to the advice of a lecturer at university, who told him he could be a good writer if he could dispense with his ruthless pursuit of the one-line gag. He is Ben Elton. Do you now reluctantly admit, Ben, that that lecturer had a point?

Ben Elton1:18

Not reluctantly at all, so I remember the advice well because at the time I rather bristled. I thought it was the voice of somebody who didn't like comedy and wanted everything to be terribly serious. I was at University at Manchester and I thought he was denying the potency of light entertainment. My heroes were always more Eric and Ernie than Vladimir and Estregon, and I felt rather kind of pugilistic about standing up for LE, as it was known then. But I now know that actually the best LE is as carefully honed and edited as any major play.

Presenter1:54

But the ruthless pursuit of the one line gag is exactly what your stand-up act, um your writing apart, your stand-up act is all about, isn't it? I mean, if you can pick up laughs along the way as you go on churning it out, that's that's what that's what you do.

Ben Elton1:54

But the

Ben Elton1:58

I must

Ben Elton2:03

That's that's

Ben Elton2:05

Well, yes, but I think my Stand Up Act actually is a good example of where I've actually taken that advice subconsciously because I tend to try and weave ideas together. And although the jokes hopefully are not so much jokes as sort of comic observations, surreal sort of little takes on that which we all recognize, you just take a lateral view and suddenly you've got a laugh. But I wouldn't call that ruthless. I'd call that sort of loving the idea along the way until you find some kind of strange communal conclusion with the audience.

Presenter2:35

But you go so fast one wonders that you have any time to kind of assess or feel the feedback from that order.

Ben Elton2:41

No, not at all. I I do speak very quickly, but I I think quite quickly, um and that's really where I gain my thoughts. I tend to come to my conclusions by exploring them rather than by thinking about them privately.

Presenter2:53

So it isn't that you've pre-learned it and you go out and deliver the thing that's already in your head, you alter it on the hoof.

Ben Elton2:57

No, it's a combination of both. But yes, it is very ser definitely prelearn. The act is pre-learned. I could publish it and indeed bits of it have been published. But each night you have to recreate it. So I'm trying to communicate.

Presenter3:07

So I'm trying to

Presenter3:09

Do you enjoy it?

Ben Elton3:10

Um

Ben Elton3:11

I enjoy it afterwards. I enjoyed sitting back with a pint and beer and having done it. I don't get any kind of performance buzz in the way sort of rock singers like Mick Jagger might say, you know, it's the adrenaline, man, you've got to feel it every night, you know, and you need the buzz. It's not sort of making love and wandering home alone. I it's far too much an effort to get my thoughts in order. It's an intellectual exercise. It sounds rather pompous, but I sort of enjoy it. But I love having made myself understood because the laughter of the audience means they understand the point you're making.

Presenter3:45

Tell me about your first record.

Ben Elton3:47

Well, I've chosen a number from the Beatles album, Revolver. I think, as indeed do many, that the Beatles are the greatest band of all time. And for me, Lennon and McCartney are the greatest composers of all time. It's pointless to make such silly comparisons and definitions, but this programme makes you think. And, you know, Life Without the Beatles, I think, would be a very, very different thing. I love them. I love everything they did, but I've chosen Angel Birkensting from Revolver.

Speaker 44:15

You've got everything you want And you're back dancing But you don't get me

Speaker 44:24

Don't get it.

Speaker 44:25

Me so you've seen seven wonders And your bed is green but you can't see me

Speaker 44:38

He can see me.

Presenter4:43

The Beatles With And Your Bird Can Sing from the album Revolver.

Presenter4:48

So Ben Elton Noel Coward was was the great hero, wasn't he, of your youth?

Ben Elton4:53

The the word hero is is something I'm I don't feel that uh that attuned to. I I I was inspired by his life enormously.

Presenter5:02

But you wanted to be him.

Ben Elton5:04

I didn't want to be him. I wanted to have his life, um to live in the theatre, to amuse, to entertain. I've always loved entertainment.

Presenter5:13

But to both write and to be on the stage, that's the point.

Ben Elton5:16

It was the writing that fascinated me, and just the idea of being so witty.

Presenter5:21

You were living, I think, in in Guildford, in Surrey, at the time, and making frequent appearances at the Borough Hall in Godalming, is that right?

Ben Elton5:28

Frequent appearances. You flatter me, Sue. I I was um during my my late late non teens and early teens I and middle teens indeed, I was a huge um am dram man. I just loved theater.

Presenter5:39

But what did you play? What play?

Ben Elton5:40

Well, my finest hour, I think, was was indeed at Gottlaming Borough Hall for thirteen nights, which is quite a run for an Amdram sock. Was the Artful Dodger in Oliver, for which the Surrey advertiser were very kind. They said I showed promise for the future. About the last good notice I got for the following twenty years actually.

Presenter5:58

And you did My Fair Lady as well.

Ben Elton5:59

I was I was up for anything. I was Lancelot Gobbo in a Merchant of Venice at Guildford Castle. I was in the Herald Players, the Curtain Raisers, the Goddling Theatre Group, uh and a number of others and all the school shows I could be in.

Presenter6:10

You've been in Peter Pan?

Ben Elton6:11

Yes, the first show I did was The Curtain Raisers at Onslow Village Hall, and I played Slightly Soiled, which is one of The Lost Boys. Godlming Theatre Group was my main main interest from about the age of twelve onwards. And I'm president of the Godling Theatre Group now, something I'm extremely proud of and I still have very firm connections with them.

Presenter6:28

But you don't very often appear at Gottelming, but I don't know.

Ben Elton6:29

I I don't appear, but I do appear in the audience.

Presenter6:32

But you were writing you were churning out the stuff as well, weren't you?

Ben Elton6:35

Churning out.

Presenter6:36

Well you were prolific, weren't you?

Ben Elton6:37

I became prolific. I started to write a little. Having discovered through Noel Coward's life that that one could write as well as perform, very quickly writing began to interest me far more than performance. And yes, I started to write. I was a huge Eric and Ernie fan then, as I am now, and I tried to write sketches for them, which were just, you know, you can't see the join and all the catchphrases.

Presenter6:59

So you were very keen, you were very enthusiastic, you were what you call farty.

Presenter7:04

Yeah, well it's every

Ben Elton7:05

Party came about much later and I've I've sort of tried to escape it a little because it's so often misunderstood and rightly so. So

Presenter7:11

Well go on, define it.

Ben Elton7:12

Let's face it, farty tends to suggest flatulence, and that's not really what I mean. I've always been an enthusiast. I love to be alive. That sounds like a farty thing to say. I like to be involved in what's going on. I'm a bit of a come on, gang, let's do the show. And when I was at university, there were sort of two types: there was the come on, gang, let's do the show. And then there were the cool guys who said, Oh, what's the point, man? It's all crap. And you disappear.

Presenter7:35

And you disapprove of cynicism.

Ben Elton7:37

I would disapprove incidentally. I don't want to sound pompous. I find cynicism the most boring and the laziest pose. And what's irritating about it is that it appears to be clever. Because the easiest thing in the world to do is believe in nothing and to deride everything. Oh, they're all hypocrites. Nothing's worth doing. And if you stand up and say, well, actually, I respect that person, or actually, I think this is worth making the effort, you sort of look like a bit of a kid.

Presenter8:00

Is Farti being a gift?

Ben Elton8:01

Sort of. I mean, I've in my stand-up routine, I've always celebrated smallness. I think it's funny how, particularly in American comedy, the cool is what's funny. The cool you are, the funnier you are. In a way, the crueler you are. If you win, you're funny. I think one of the great things about British comedy is that we celebrate weakness, pomposity, sadness, vulnerability. Look at Faulty, look at Captain Mannering, Rick, and the young ones, or even the Black Adder. And in my stand-up act, I've always looked within. I've always looked at, you know, my own secret fears and worries. And it's wonderful to find how much they communicate that we all are sort of a little scared, scared of being liked or not being liked, scared of whatever powers we may or may not have. And so, to sort of celebrate the fact that we're not cool. Record number two. Well, I mean, talking about cool, Elvis is, to me, the king of rock and roll. And I believe this is one of the greatest vocals ever laid down. Heartbreak Hotel.

Speaker 48:58

Well since my baby left me, when I find a new place to dwell, when it's dark at the end of a lonely street, that heartbreak hotel will

Speaker 49:09

Wanna be just a lonely baby, well I'm so lonely.

Speaker 49:14

I'll be so lonely, I could die

Speaker 49:18

All the soul is crowded, and you still can find some room for broken-hearted mothers to crowd their little

Presenter9:28

Elvis Presley and Heartbreak Hotel.

Ben Elton9:30

King.

Presenter9:30

Yeah.

Speaker 49:30

Yeah.

Presenter9:30

Tell me uh a bit more about your family, Ben, because uh they're they're rather academically distinguished, aren't they?

Ben Elton9:37

Um

Ben Elton9:38

Well, yes, I suppose you could certainly say that. Both my parents are in teaching. Uh my mother uh was a was an English teacher, a school teacher, and my father was a

Ben Elton9:49

And is in academia. His family, particularly, my father's family, are are deeply academic. There were sort of professors and historians in the line.

Presenter9:57

You you had an uncle who was the the the Regis Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, I think.

Ben Elton10:02

Yes, Geoffrey, my dad's brother, was uh he's he's died now, but he was uh Sir Geoffrey in fact. I think Thatch gave him that. Um and uh

Presenter10:11

But all of that background leads people to believe that your accent is bogus. Somehow, if people hold

Ben Elton10:16

Yeah.

Presenter10:18

At positions like that, they can't have brought up a son who speaks with an estuary accent. Now, what's the truth? Is it bogus?

Ben Elton10:22

It's a source of great frustration to me, that's well, great frustration, a little frustration, the snobbery around that. My voice does change. Everyone has telephone manners. I certainly speak a little bit better when I'm speaking to you, too. But then again, I think everyone does. But my accent is entirely real. I was, and why wouldn't it be? I was born in southeast London. My father's an immigrant. His English is his third language. He was born in Germany, then they became Czech citizens when Hitler came to power in Germany, and then the family came to Britain. So actually, English is his third first language, so to speak. My mother's from Cheshire, and I was born in South East London and went to state primary school, state junior school. So you.

Presenter11:04

So you ought to speak like John Major, in the middle of the morning.

Ben Elton11:06

Well it's funny, we my mum la did laugh that when this business about estuary English came up, there's a great idea, there's this new accent that's not Cockney, it's not Essex, it's estuary or whatever. Uh this article suggested that um John Major and I had similar accents, but that his were real was real and mine was affected. But the interesting thing is we we have almost identical backgrounds.

Presenter11:26

Anyway, what did she what did the parents say when you were sixteen and you announced that you wanted to leave school and sweep up backstage in some theater or other?

Ben Elton11:34

Well, I was terribly fortunate. My parents are very thoughtful people, and we have a very close family. And I was saying, I want to leave school, there's no point. I don't want to go to university. University doesn't, you know, I don't know, Gilgard never went to university or whatever. And they felt very strongly that I was being a bit naive and that it would be better to wait to make these decisions, better to sort of stay in education, at least till I knew who I was. And I was terribly lucky that there was an article one day about this marvellous course in Stratford-on-Avon at a college of further education, just to say college, but a marvellous A-level course run by an inspirational man called Gordon Vallins, who had come up with the idea of a theatre studies A-level. Theatre as part of education, theatre as part of life. Not just, you know, reading about Brecht and Gilgard, but theatre as life. And I passed the interview and got onto it. And so I left home at 16. And I actually, after a brief period in Diggs, I lived in a caravan in a field, friends nearby. It was a marvellous, marvellous time for.

Presenter12:34

Uh

Speaker 412:34

Yeah.

Presenter12:34

Right, sir.

Ben Elton12:35

Yeah, well I I it was I mean, I I don't think I made the most of it. I never I n I never had a girlfriend in all the time I had no I wished I looking back, God, if only. I had a little Honda fifty and I used to drive into college in Stratford and I remember I

Presenter12:41

Well not in the caravan, no

Presenter12:49

I didn't have a girl in there either.

Ben Elton12:51

I had an unrequited love affair. I was in love with someone who didn't fancy me. We were friends.

Presenter12:58

Tell me about record number three.

Ben Elton13:00

I've chosen London Calling from the London Calling album by The Clash. I wasn't a punk myself, wasn't quite cool enough, but I did cut my hair and I did stop wearing flares about 78, you know. I think The Clash are a truly great rock and roll band. I think Strummer Jones, great, great songwriters, and this is a fantastic example of their work, London Calling.

Speaker 413:22

London calling to the faraway towns Now war is declared and battle come down London calling to the underworld Come out of the cupboard, you boys and girls London calling, now don't look to us

Speaker 413:39

Fonny Beatlemania is burnt in the dust London calling Sea we ain't got no swing Except for the rain And the treacherous thing The ice is

Presenter13:51

The Clash and the London Calling.

Presenter13:54

So University, Manchester, reading drama, and importantly there you met Rick Mayle and Aide Edmondson, um with and for whom you were to write the young ones. Was it love at first sight?

Ben Elton14:04

Rick and I were became friends instantly, yes, actually. I admired him enormously. It's funny, I saw him on stage, they did a sort of Freshers review the third years. Rick and Aide were third years when I was a first year, and they did a little review for the Freshers, I think in an effort to pull a girl's frankly. Because I was a first year, there is that divide. He always had this great joke where he'd say, Hi, Fresher, I can't remember your name, even though he knew very well what my name was, and we'd been friends for a year. And that relationship actually coloured our early relationship writing together. I was always trying to please him, and I think some very good work emerged from that. And when Rick's opportunity came, Paul Jackson said, Look, you guys look hot. Do you want to try and develop a pilot for a sitcom script? He decided that that old mate might be a useful member of the team.

Speaker 114:27

Bye.

Presenter14:54

A useful

Presenter14:56

This was the young ones for BBC One. And so as a result, by the age of twenty one, technically anyway, you were a BBC scriptwriter. But then suddenly you decided to become a stand-up comic. Why? Where did that come from?

Ben Elton15:03

Hmm.

Ben Elton15:10

I was broke. The Young Ones was just beginning. I mean, we didn't weren't paid for this script. But the BBC merely said, we'll read it if you write it. So that was happening. It was January, February 81. I'd left university. My plays were not being picked up by the RSC scriptwriter or the Royal Court scriptwriter. Funnily enough. I was not earning a living, and my work was not being seen.

Presenter15:26

Funnily enough.

Ben Elton15:32

So I was desperately thinking how can I move forward in entertainment? And the only option I had was my own self.

Presenter15:37

Can you remember what your first routine was about?

Ben Elton15:40

Yeah, I mean a couple of bits were good, but I mean part of it I did do an impression of Ronald Reagan, including a Grecian two thousand gag, for which I I weep with shame to this day.

Presenter15:49

Go on, let's have it.

Ben Elton15:50

Uh nah.

Presenter15:51

Ha ha ha ha.

Ben Elton15:52

I can't write. Well, honestly, I don't. It was an American accent and a few lefty jokes about, I suppose, probably ageist jokes by looking back on it. But the good bit of the act was I did an impression of a sexist, racist comedian. Now, in 1996, that might seem dreadfully tired, old satire, indeed, politically correct, and what's wrong with a few good gags, this and that. But at the time, comedy tended to be brutalisation, tended to be taking the mick out of minorities. People are much more reluctant to do that now. So when people sneer at political correctness or things, just let them remember actually the amount of ground that's been covered. For instance, one of the big things I was knocked for was not presuming on the sexuality of the audience. So I would sometimes say, you know, the straight women in the audience will know what I mean if I'm talking about having it off with a man or something, or the gays will know what I mean. Now, this was seen as outrageous piety by some journalists. It wasn't piety. It was a simple reaction that I'd had from, I remember at university seeing a badge which I thought was terribly clever. A woman was wearing it. How dare you presume I'm a heterosexual? Now, in 1979, that was interesting. I mean, these days, I think it would be unnecessary. We've all moved on. It would actually look pious now and rather divisive. But then, before, really before anyone had even thought, hey, hang on a minute, yes, she might well not be a heterosexual. You know, these were interesting thoughts that moved us all on. And they certainly affected me.

Presenter17:13

But

Ben Elton17:13

Yeah. Music. Right, we move on to country music. Emilou Harris, one of the great voices of country music. I adore country music. I remember first discovering it through Elvis Costello's brilliant almost blue album. He put on the front, If You're Small Minded, Don't Listen. I love it. I love Emilou. One of these days, one of the most wistful, thought-provoking songs. Great lyric, great song.

Speaker 417:35

La won hair t chamo.

Speaker 417:39

I can dream better I can dream

Speaker 417:44

Been any way that I'm

Speaker 417:47

Wanna leave home?

Speaker 417:49

Might be a woman that's dressed in black.

Speaker 417:55

We own all other railroad tracks.

Speaker 417:59

I'll be gone like the Wayward Wind one of these days.

Presenter18:06

Emilou Harris singing One of These Days. So Ben Elton, you ran the two careers performing and writing in tandem through the eighties, co-writing Black Adder with Richard Curtis, which also like the young ones was eventually to win a BAFTA, doing the stand up stuff on Channel Four, Saturday and Friday Live.

Presenter18:23

It was about then, wasn't it, that the criticism began that at first you were the the smug git in the shiny suit, which was in fact your phrase. I think I bet you regret ever saying that.

Ben Elton18:32

Well, uh, what I said was uh a lot of people see me as a smug git in a shiny suit. I never considered myself smug. Um, I think it's got rid of the shiny suits. I certainly got rid of the shiny shiny suits.

Presenter18:41

But you got rid of the shiny suits. I certainly got rid of the shiny shiny suits. But the press the the press became very poisonous. They cottoned onto that and they developed it. I mean, it became extremely nasty. You you became let me quote some magic obnoxious and foul mouthed, smartass and so all that.

Speaker 418:52

Please do.

Ben Elton18:53

She said,

Speaker 118:53

Uh

Presenter18:56

What brought all that on in your view? Why, you you got it in the neck in a way that other comedians didn't.

Ben Elton19:02

It's very nice of you to say so, because I did used to think why me. I do think that the efforts to get at me were very personal. Oh, he's a hypocrite, he says he's all politics, but then look at well, he must be a billionaire by now, he's been on the telly and all that. And and the because the the the attacks were always the things that I feel I loath most. Hypocrisy, uh smugness, pomposity, uh uh being opinionated. I I I may appear a bit all comedians are opinionated because an act has to have some vigour, it has to have some passion. But privately I I love to listen, I love to discuss, I I believe democracy in one's life and in one's country are the most important uh is the most important way to run.

Presenter19:42

So you were a victim of your own style, were you? That your style is slightly no all'cause you don't stop and it keeps rattling out, as we say.

Ben Elton19:46

Or could you

Ben Elton19:48

The fear of the gong, the comedy stool gong, has hung over me till it casts a very long shadow at the gong.

Presenter19:53

But the gong gongs you off when you're too awful and you've got to go.

Ben Elton19:53

Exactly. I was never gonged, but one of the reasons I was never gonged is I talked so fast it was impossible to get even one beat of a gong in. And I do believe that my early days as a comic informed my style and I think influenced me.

Presenter20:06

But obviously to an extent it was a a right wing press having a go at you because you were knocking Mrs Thatcher through the eighties. I mean, first the first question is, would you be as irritated by and as critical of a Labour government?

Ben Elton20:11

Through the

Ben Elton20:18

The 1945 to 1951 Labour Government? No, I think it's the finest administration that Britain ever produced and the NHS is the crowning glory of our nation.

Presenter20:27

But what they're saying about you is you're a natural labor supporter and therefore enjoyed knocking thatch at you.

Ben Elton20:31

Uh

Presenter20:31

Yeah.

Ben Elton20:31

No, not at all. I'm not a natural anything supporter. I'm not a party political comedian. My support for what it's worth is not for the Labour Party per se, it's for policies of which I approve. And there have been some things that Conservatives have done that I've approved of. What I was doing in the 80s on Saturday Live and Friday Live as a live comedian was doing the job that a live comedian, particularly a young one on Channel 4, damn well ought to do, which is looking at the powers that be and having a go. Having a go, though, based on principle. I believe satire without principle is a blunt sword indeed. If you say, if you just take the mech out of someone's long upper lip or glasses or whatever, or you say, well, I've had a go at the Tories, I'd better have a go at Labour, that's pointless. You must have a principle of a powerful. So you don't make a joke.

Presenter21:13

So you don't make a jo you don't say anything that you don't believe.

Ben Elton21:16

Never.

Presenter21:17

Record number five.

Ben Elton21:19

Um my next record is is is from Bob Dylan. I could have chosen almost anything that Bob Dylan ever wrote or performed. I've uh chosen a track from Blood on the Tracks, I think his greatest album, although my lord, there's there's a number to choose from.

Ben Elton21:32

That wonderful evocative song which I remember listening to lonely in my caravan all those years ago as a as a indulgently sad sixteen year old, simple twist of fate.

Speaker 421:45

They walked along by the old canal.

Speaker 421:48

A little confused, I remember well.

Speaker 421:52

And stopped into a strange hotel with a neon burning bright.

Speaker 121:54

Where then

Speaker 421:58

He felt the heat of the night.

Speaker 422:02

Like a fragment.

Speaker 422:07

Yeah.

Presenter22:07

With a simple twist of feet.

Presenter22:10

Bob Dylan and Simple Twist of Fate from his album Blood on the Tracks.

Presenter22:14

Let's cut to your writing, then, Ben. Four novels since nineteen eighty nine. The first three, although containing plenty of those one liners, were had serious environmental themes. You're, among everything else, an eco freak as well.

Ben Elton22:28

An eco freak. Is it freaky to to worry about pollution? I don't know. Um, I'm I'm very environmentally concerned. I'm sure you are. I don't think anybody who has eyes to see uh and a mind to think or whatever uh

Ben Elton22:43

Would not be concerned about the fact that we are clearly dirtying up the planet at a considerable rate.

Presenter22:50

So do you feel equally passionate about violence on the screen, which of course is the theme of your fourth novel, Popcorn?

Ben Elton22:56

I feel passionate about responsibility. I must say very quickly that violence on the screen is as broad a church as love on the screen. I value my right as an individual to see challenging and difficult imagery. I want to see a good production of Macbeth. I loved pulp fiction. There is violence and there is violence. I believe the problem is that some artists are disingenuously using the freedoms which we treasure to produce salacious and pornographic imagery, which they know is appealing simply to the lowest common denominator.

Presenter23:30

We're talking about Oliver Stone here in Natural Born Films.

Ben Elton23:32

No, no, no, no. I don't think he did it deliberately. I think it's a very poor piece of work, and I think he made a big mistake. I actually think it's not as simple as that. Art influences people, but if it does, what are we to do about it? Do we want our movie makers to make films tailored to avoid provoking the unguessable sensibilities of maniacs? Fred West watched Disney videos. Was Shakespeare not write Hamlet because there were loonies then as there are loonies now? Don't forget that cars kill thousands of people. Every time you get in your car, you potentially become a murderer. But we know that society needs cars, we need transport, and hence we consider it a fair enough risk, just as we consider alcohol a fair enough risk. What we need, to put it glibly, as we need careful drivers, we need careful artists. When artists produce a piece of work, they must remember they're part of a community and they should enrich that community.

Presenter24:17

But why did you write the book? I mean, we should explain for people who don't know about it that it's very funny, there's a lot of black humour in it. It's about a couple of serial killers who arrive at the Hollywood home of a director of a film, a kind of Oliver Stone figure. Forgive me for repeating it, but he's it's that kind of guy, isn't it?

Speaker 124:32

But he's it's that kind of guy.

Presenter24:35

And they say that his film inspired them to kill and they seek to blame him.

Presenter24:40

Now, perhaps you wrote it then not because you feel that strongly about screen violence, but because copycat killers as victims is a natty idea. It was good dramatic irony.

Ben Elton24:47

Yeah.

Ben Elton24:49

It was good dramatic irony. Oh, absolutely. The thing that inspired me was the dark comedy and the intense drama of the fact that we now have a society which is constantly seeking someone to blame, every disaster. So who is to blame? Were the social workers to blame? Was counseling offered afterwards? We're always looking for a quick fix, a soundbite fix. We need to look within ourselves. And when the NBK, which is the cool way of saying natural-born killers, debate started, I was fascinated to see eminent journalists, writers I respect, confidently making the connection between fictitious violence and real violence. And I thought, well, if they can make that connection, so can killers. And now they have a plea in mitigation. To me, that says something about our culture, our concept of justice, of personal responsibility. And it brought me to think about the images of violence in film. But these are vast, vast issues. And never forget, Sue, that if Oliver Stone is successfully sued by the victim of violence, which is what's happening in America, I believe we can't have films anymore because we don't know what's going to provoke someone.

Presenter25:49

More music.

Ben Elton25:50

Please, yes. Well, I'm gonna go to uh uh going to go abroad here. Uh I'm gonna go to two phenomenal uh vocalists, uh Vicar and Linda Bull. They're Australians of Maori extraction and um they're singing a song by the brilliant Australian songwriter Paul Kelly. This is just a great pop song. It's House of Love by Vicar and Linda Bull.

Speaker 426:17

We can brave or the cool of the rain, but will it begin to fall?

Speaker 426:24

A new wind to stir up the flame has come to remind us old.

Speaker 126:24

You win

Speaker 426:31

We need more than a five brigade

Speaker 426:35

But clean up this best remain

Presenter26:38

House of Love by Vicar and Linda Bull. You sound like a workaholic, Ben, and we haven't even mentioned your stage plays and the thin blue line which Rowan Atkinson's been doing on BBC One, written by you, and your national stand-up tour this winter. Does it all flow very easily still? Do you sit down and work to order for set hours every day?

Ben Elton26:56

Set-ish hours. I'm working very hard at the moment with Thin Blue Line and so seeing perhaps less of my wife than I'd like to. But when I'm writing, of course we we all we have our evenings. I don't work evenings when I'm writing.

Presenter27:07

Thought you went down the pub then?

Ben Elton27:09

I like the pub. I like the pub slightly less. Well, we do occasionally. We go out to meal with friends or whatever. I I l I was a big pub man in my twenties. I'm less of a pub man now.

Presenter27:10

Yeah.

Presenter27:18

But when you get down the pub you're a born worrier, I gather. You worry that you haven't turned the lights off back at the house or the gas is still on the hob.

Ben Elton27:24

I've got better. I wrote a routine once many years ago called Captain Paranoi and it was self-therapy on stage because I did get into terrible habits about checking plugs twice and worrying that the the the gas was running or whatever. But what was delightful was I discovered when I exploited that for those fears in a stage routine that the audience understood. You know, you hear the creak in the middle of the night and it sounds exactly like the stealthy footfall of a mad axeman. So you pull your duvet up because let's face it, I mean duvets are a perfect defence to a mad axe.

Presenter27:51

But would there be any bliss for you in solitary confinement on a desert island? Would you like it at all?

Ben Elton27:56

I'm very good on my own. I like um I'm perfectly happy with my own company, but no, I I I only like my own company because I I I l I love my life. I'm very fortunate in my friends, in in my wife, in my family, and and so without that I think I would be um I would be bereft.

Presenter28:15

Record number seven.

Ben Elton28:16

Right, we're going to stay in Australia. The brilliant Australian band Midnight Oil, huge international reputation, great rock and roll, committed rock and roll, also marvellous ballads. But we've heard a lot of ballads, and I love to rock too. So we're going to take the opening track from the phenomenal Diesel and Dust album by Midnight Oil, and It's Beds Are Burning.

Speaker 428:37

We dance when our peace burning

Speaker 428:45

Keep wallpaper

Speaker 428:47

Right.

Speaker 428:53

Hoping we dance when our love is turned

Presenter29:07

Beds are burning by midnight oil.

Presenter29:11

The generally ecstatic reviews for Popcorn Ben included one which said Mr Elton has found a trade which we must hope will occupy him for the second half of his career. It's a bit of a backhander, but I think it was meant meant well. Do you think

Speaker 129:22

I think it was meant that

Presenter29:25

Like the lecturer who told you to give up the ruthless pursuit of the one-liner, he may have a point that writing is actually, as you said, your first love is where you should go back to what you should settle for.

Ben Elton29:34

I've never done anything else but write. My stand-up comedy has has become the is the highest profile thing I do because of course it's me personally life, but that is simply an expression of my writing. I don't consider it any more or less important than writing a novel or writing a six-year-old.

Presenter29:48

But could you manage without appearing?

Ben Elton29:49

Oh, definitely. But to me, my stand-up work is one.

Ben Elton29:54

One equal part of novels, plays, sitcoms. I'm a comedian.

Presenter29:58

Yeah, but I wondered because as we discussed you had such you have still actually, other than popcorn, really a fairly poisonous press, I wonder if you might be a happier chappie.

Ben Elton30:06

Be a hand.

Presenter30:07

If you were behind the scenes a bit more. Or whether you secretly like it a bit.

Ben Elton30:08

Behind

Ben Elton30:11

Or whether you

Ben Elton30:13

Oh, I do like it because I I think I'm I think stand-up comedy is a beautiful medium for delivering comedic ideas. It's as good as sitcom or as good as novels. It keeps you connected with the audience. It means the ideas have to be terribly tightly honed. It's a good discipline to have to write a stand-up routine because you can waffle a bit on a page and maybe the reader will forgive you. You can't waffle on stage. The death lasts forever.

Presenter30:39

Cast record

Ben Elton30:40

Well, um, in no great significant order or anything, but we come to Jennifer Warne's version of Leonard Cohen's Ain't No Cure for Love from the famous Blue Raincoat album. I love a sad love song, and I think this has got to be got to be one of the best.

Speaker 430:55

I'll never get enough.

Speaker 430:58

Ah, there ain't no cure.

Speaker 431:01

Ain't no good, ain't no good.

Speaker 431:07

Every sucker.

Speaker 431:12

I know you.

Speaker 431:17

No feel, no breath, no no.

Presenter31:23

Jennifer Warns and Ain't No Cure for Love from Famous Blue Raincoat. So if you could only take one of those records, Ben. Which one is it?

Ben Elton31:31

I would have to take the The Beatles because the memories, the soundtrack to one's life, you know, all the records and a hundred others. The the pain of making this selection has been beyond. I feel personally I've insulted so many great artists because I didn't have a chance to acknowledge them, but I believe the Beatles are the greatest.

Presenter31:47

But I believe that

Presenter31:49

What about your book?

Ben Elton31:50

Um well

Ben Elton31:53

A decision of extraordinary pain. But in the long run, there could only be one.

Ben Elton31:58

choice and that would be um my wedding album. The photos

Speaker 432:02

Really?

Ben Elton32:02

of uh of of my wedding day, which I was certainly the happiest day of my life, and we had one hell of a party, and uh I think I could sustain myself for quite a long time on the desert island remembering that day. Um and so that that's my choice of books.

Presenter32:19

What about your luxury?

Ben Elton32:21

Well, uh I don't know how you're gonna feel about this.

Ben Elton32:24

Having failed to choose a book that I can read, I've decided to ask if I can take the British Museum with me.

Presenter32:33

Which bit of it?

Ben Elton32:34

Well, um

Ben Elton32:36

I'd like to take it all. I don't suppose you'll let me take the reading room, because that's all the books in the world. And that's what I'd really like to take, because I do love to read. And the idea of only having one book to read in the rest of one's life, I think, is almost to make life not worth living. I recognise you won't let me take a library, that's absurd. But I'd like to take the rest of it. I'd like to take world history. I'd like to take all the things I've never had a chance to study, all the artefacts I've never looked at. I love history above all subjects. History is in my family, as we mentioned before, and I love to read a history book. If I can't take a book, I'll take history. I'll have the British Museum, if you'll let me.

Presenter33:14

Ben Elton, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Ben Elton33:18

It's been a very great pleasure.

Speaker 133:27

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.