Ben Elton is back on the road with his ‘Authentic Stupidity’ Tour and how great is it to see him coming to Felixstowe!
The marketing spiel: Ben Elton first exploded into the national consciousness back in the 1980s hosting Channel 4’s ground-breaking Saturday Live and he’s been setting the standard for gig-filled, taboo busting, tonsil rattling, mind expanding stand-up comedy ever since!
At my age I was certainly around when Ben was on the scene, although at the time I possibly found him too political, yet I have appreciated his comedy writing talents over the years, therefore I was slightly cautious of this show being over political, there was no fear of that as it really wasn’t a political rant.
Firstly, at 65 years old he was looking in fantastic shape! He also had the same delivery technique (although not sure why I thought it would have changed) which was fast-paced continued delivery, only pausing enough to suck in more breath before the next 100 words were delivered. He only barely paused for some of the laughter to subside where he took the opportunity to quickly gulp a drink.
It was more or less an hour each side of the interval and if he were an actor he would have been highly praised for the compelling monologue.
The tour is called ‘Authentic Stupidity’ where Ben unpacks his bewilderment of how stupid humans can be and how we can be both ingenious and stupid at the same time, how we used to be able to fix things, read maps and have proper jobs.
He mentioned at the start that he doesn’t want to be one of those comics that gets on stage as an angry old man complaining about everything as he gets older, he reminded us that he’s always been angry!
It wasn’t a show to bring up any of his past, or relish in his achievements although he touched on a proud moment where he wrote a chair joke for Ronnie Corbet, which then Ronnie used for the next 20 years with no royalties.
It was a funny social commentary where he, like many of us I’m sure, wonders how humanity is coping with life at the moment. He reflects on having elderly parents and how as a nation we are not allowing them to go when they are ready, instead we are forcing them to say alive for slow painful deaths and the sorrow of having to watch it.
Of course all the Gen Z topics were raised and his opinion put forward on the types of jobs they seem to have such as media or making coffee and of course the frightening cancel culture which could happen seemingly at any time for any reason. He commented on generational property disparity, James Bond, cultural appropriation, gender roles and the wheelie bin brigade, and that you can tell the age demographic by the type of tattoo, particularly the random doodles of a drunk spider.
He touched on that community used to be geographical and all-inclusive however now becoming exclusive as you have to have the right label to fit in. He’s still angry at societal changes not the generational changes.
Ben did give us a disclaimer at the start with regards to potentially being offensive but as he says, it’s his show and he can do what he wants besides why would you buy a ticket if you didn’t want to hear what I had to say – that’s a fair point.
Personally, I didn’t think there was anything offensive. It contained smart, thought provoking humour as he promoted the discussion as to why he was angry with each subject and it was delivered in an engaging and attention catching style. I thoroughly enjoyed seeing him live.