Actors - Ben Elton

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	Actors - Ben Elton

Benjamin Charles Elton (born May 3, 1959) is an English comedian and writer. Born in Catford, London of an Jewish immigrant family of academics (he is the son of the educational researcher Lewis Elton and the nephew of the historian G. R. Elton), he studied at Godalming Grammar School and the University of Manchester. He became a stand-up comedian and comedy writer shortly after leaving university in 1980, and was a central figure in the alternative comedy scene in the early 1980s. He has also achieved success writing musicals.

TV

In 1980 he wrote and appeared in Granada Television's sketch show Alfresco, which was also notable for early appearances by Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson and Robbie Coltrane but which received poor ratings. He also performed and hosted the BBC comedy show The Oxford Roadshow which again was not well-received. However, his live act took off when, after a series of storming performances, he was hired by The Comedy Store in London as its compere, and more TV work followed as a result.

His first major TV success was as co-writer of the television sitcom The Young Ones. Conceived by Rik Mayall and Lise Mayer, Elton was brought in by Mayall to piece scripts and jokes together. Elton occasionally appeared in the show in bit-parts.

In 1985, Elton became the youngest sole scriptwriter for the BBC when his idyllic comedy-drama series Happy Families, starring Jennifer Saunders and Adrian Edmondson, was aired. Elton appeared in the fifth episode as a liberal prison governor. Shortly afterwards, he reunited Mayall and Edmondson with their Young Ones co-star Nigel Planer for the showbiz send-up sitcom Filthy, Rich and Catflap which was not well received at the time.

Elton's reputation as the hottest new comic writer led to a call from Richard Curtis who was looking for a second opinion before writing the second series of Blackadder, the first series of which had been disliked by BBC bosses. Elton answered the plea and duly injected more cynicism into the main character, played by Rowan Atkinson, and created more of a disdainful relationship between Blackadder and servant Baldrick, played by Tony Robinson. The three series he co-wrote (set in Elizabethan, Regency and First World War eras) were a huge success and remain arguably his most widely admired TV work.

Elton's writing plaudits were not being matched by those he received as a stand-up performer. He had become a regular turn on Saturday Live — later moved and renamed Friday Night Live — which was seen as a UK version of Saturday Night Live
. He later became the host of the programme, which involved Elton performing a series of topical routines, often with the intent of using his known left wing sympathies to attack the Conservative government of the time and especially the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (or "Thatch", as he called her). The more right wing sections of the British press started to scorn him, and the image of Elton with his long hair, red 'Buggles glasses and - most famously - his midnight blue, sparkly suit became one of the most endearing of the late 1980s in the UK.

In 1990 he starred in his own stand-up comedy and sketch series entitled The Man from Auntie, which had a second series in 1994. (The title plays on The Man from U.N.C.L.E.; "Auntie" is a nickname for the BBC).

A similar format was used for The Ben Elton Show which aired in 1998. This show seemed to mark the beginning of his decline in the spotlight with an incongruous regular guest being Ronnie Corbett - a comedian of the very same 'old-guard' the 'Alternative Comedians' of the 80s existed as the alternative to. His most recent television sitcom was The Thin Blue Line, set in a police station and also starring Atkinson in a show littered with stereotyped characters and thin-on-the ground with the edgier humour for which he was known. This programme ran for two series (1995, 1996). Though never leaving the public eye, Elton's writing and performing credits for TV since The Thin Blue Line have been limited - most probably because of a loss of favour from his original audience. He has appeared on occasional talk shows, but mainly to plug projects in the theatre or in paperback, or to appear 'down' with the kids - most notably (and embarrasingly) on the Richard Blackwood show in 1999.

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