Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
A writer and comedian, best known as a stand-up comic and for writing TV shows including The Young Ones, Blackadder and The Thin Blue Line.
On the island
Eight records
And Your Bird Can SingFavourite
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.
Mae Boren Axton, Tommy Durden, Elvis Presley
Elvis is, to me, the king of rock and roll. And I believe this is one of the greatest vocals ever laid down.
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...
I adore country music. ... One of these days, one of the most wistful, thought-provoking songs. Great lyric, great song.
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...
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.
Rob Hirst, James Moginie, Peter Garrett
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.
I love a sad love song, and I think this has got to be got to be one of the best.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:30Do you now reluctantly admit, Ben, that that lecturer [at university] had a point [about dispensing with the ruthless pursuit of the one-line gag]?
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. ... But I now know that actually the best LE is as carefully honed and edited as any major play.
Presenter asks
10:11Is your voice [and accent] bogus?
It's a source of great frustration to me, that's well, great frustration, a little frustration, the snobbery around that. ... 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. ... My mother's from Cheshire, and I was born in South East London and went to state primary school, state junior school.
Presenter asks
11:26What did your parents say when you were sixteen and you announced that you wanted to leave school and sweep up backstage in some theater?
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. ... 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...
The keepsakes
The book
Ben Elton
A decision of extraordinary pain. But in the long run, there could only be one choice and that would be my wedding album. The photos of my wedding day, which I was certainly the happiest day of my life, and we had one hell of a party, and I think I could sustain myself for quite a long time on the desert island remembering that day.
The luxury
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.
Presenter asks
14:56Why did you decide to become a stand-up comic?
I was broke. The Young Ones was just beginning. I mean, we didn't weren't paid for this script. ... I'd left university. My plays were not being picked up by the RSC scriptwriter or the Royal Court scriptwriter. ... So I was desperately thinking how can I move forward in entertainment? And the only option I had was my own self.
Presenter asks
18:56What brought all that [press criticism] on in your view?
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... 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. ... 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.
Presenter asks
20:06Would you be as irritated by and as critical of a Labour government?
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. ... 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.
“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.”
“I think one of the great things about British comedy is that we celebrate weakness, pomposity, sadness, vulnerability.”
“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.”