Ben Elton

Benjamin Charles Elton (born 3 May 1959) is a British comedian, actor, author, playwright, lyricist and director.

Elton grew up in Catford, south London, before moving with his family to Guildford, Surrey in 1968, where he became involved in amateur dramatics groups.

"I started with the Curtain Raisers in Onslow Village. Yes, we did Peter Pan in 1969 and mum persuaded me to go along to the audition. For me it was literally an Epiphany. My road to Damascus was Friar’s Gate. I had an absolute revelation. I loved the theatre and I knew I wanted to be involved in story telling and the public arts. From that moment onwards I was completely hooked."Raised in a loving non-religious home, he is an atheist.

Elton studied at Stillness Junior School and Godalming Grammar School in Surrey, before leaving home at age 16 to study theatre at South Warwickshire College in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he took and passed A-levels in English, History and Theatre Studies.

In 1977 he went to study drama at the University of Manchester, where he met Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson, and in 1980 he graduated with upper second-class honours.

He was a part of London's alternative comedy movement of the 1980s and became a writer on the sitcoms The Young Ones and Blackadder, as well as continuing as a stand-up comedian on stage and television.

His style in the 1980s was left-wing political satire.

Upon university graduation in 1980, Elton joined the BBC and became their youngest ever scriptwriter.

His first television appearance came in 1981 as a stand-up performer on the BBC1 youth and music programme Oxford Road Show.

His first TV success, at 23, came as co-writer of the television sitcom The Young Ones, in which he occasionally appeared.

In 1983/84 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.

In 1985, Elton produced his first solo script for the BBC with his comedy-drama series Happy Families, starring Jennifer Saunders and Adrian Edmondson.

Elton appeared in the fifth episode as a liberal prison governor.

Shortly afterwards, he reunited Rik Mayall and Edmondson with their Young Ones co-star Nigel Planer for the showbiz send-up sitcom Filthy, Rich & Catflap.

In 1985 Elton began his writing partnership with Richard Curtis.

Together they wrote Blackadder II, Blackadder the Third (in one episode, Elton appeared as a bomb-wielding anarchist), Blackadder Goes Forth and a failed sitcom pilot for Madness.

Blackadder, starring Rowan Atkinson, was a worldwide hit, winning four BAFTAs and an Emmy.

Elton and Curtis were inspired to write Blackadder Goes Forth upon finding World War I to be apt for a situation comedy.

This series, which dealt with greater, darker themes than prior Blackadder episodes, was praised for Curtis's and Elton's scripts, in particular the final episode.

Before writing the series, the pair read about the war and found that: "All the lead up to the first World War was very funny. All the people coming from communities where they'd never bumped into posh people and all being so gung ho and optimistic. The first hundred pages of any book about the world war are hilarious, then of course everybody dies."

Elton and Curtis also wrote Atkinson's 1986 stage show The New Revue, and Mr. Bean's "exam" episode.

Elton became a stand-up comedian primarily to showcase his own writing, but became one of Britain's biggest live comedy acts.

After a regular slot on Saturday Live – later moved and renamed Friday Night Live – which was seen as a UK version of the US's Saturday Night Live, he became the host of the programme.

(The title plays on The Man from UNCLE: "Auntie" is a nickname for the BBC.) In 1989 Elton won the Royal Television Society Writers' Award.

In 1990 he starred in his own stand-up comedy and sketch series, Ben Elton: The Man from Auntie, which had a second series in 1994.

The Ben Elton Show (1998) followed a format similar to The Man from Auntie and featured Ronnie Corbett, a comedian of the old guard that the "alternative comedians" of the 1980s were the direct alternative to, as a regular guest.

It was Elton's last high-profile network programme in the UK as a stand-up comedian.

Since then he has published 17 novels and written the musicals The Beautiful Game (2000), We Will Rock You (2002), Tonight's the Night (2003), and Love Never Dies (2010), the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera.

His novels cover the dystopian, comedy, and crime genres.

Elton was born at University College Hospital in Fitzrovia, London, the son of Mary (née Foster), an English teacher from Cheshire, and physicist and educational researcher Professor Lewis Elton.

He is a nephew of the historian Sir Geoffrey Elton and a third cousin of singer Olivia Newton-John.

Elton's father is from a German-Jewish family and Elton's mother, who was raised in the Church of England, is of British background.

Elton wrote the six-part sitcom Blessed, starring Ardal O'Hanlon as a record producer, first broadcast on BBC1 in 2005.

No further series was commissioned.

In April 2007, Get a Grip, a new show, began on ITV1.

Featuring comic sketches similar to those on The Ben Elton Show and staged studio discussion between Elton and 23-year-old Alexa Chung, the show's aim was to "contrast Elton's middle-aged viewpoint with Chung's younger perspective" (although Elton was responsible for the scripts).

In Third Way Magazine, Elton accused the BBC of allowing jokes about vicars but not imams.

"And I believe that part of it is due to the genuine fear that the authorities and the communities have about provoking the radical elements of Islam".

On 10 October 2010, Elton headlined the first episode of Dave's One Night Stand.

Reflecting on those times at an event in Guildford in 2013, Elton said: