West Side Tory: Ben Elton - the musical.

[Bert Thung]

Just found out about this production, that looks like it's specially designed to send the forum into absolute rage:

"How far can Ben Elton's popularity fall? As if it's not bad enough being sent to Room 101 by the fearsomely Botoxed Anne Robinson for "hypocrisy", the radical-comic-turned- Lloyd-Webber-wordsmith is to be immortalised on stage. Scheduled to première at the Gilded Balloon during this year's Edinburgh Festival is a show entitled West Side Tory: Ben Elton - the musical. It's a one-man "spectacle-acular", and its main marketing point is that it is "not written, endorsed, or in any way featuring the real Ben Elton" (sic). "
http://www.newstatesman.com/Arts/200607030041

http://www.itsalrightforsome.com/page.php?pageID=acts&acts_id=59
http://www.danthomas.co.uk/

[Darrell]

Christ.

He's married to Julia Morris, too.

[clareQuilty]

well...he responds to his text messages promptly. That's all I can say.

[The Mumbler]

Richie Webb's Fifteen Minute Musical must be a little miffed.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

How many people have done the 'Ben Elton - The Musical' joke now? Is it by any chance Every Comedian In The World?

[Darrell]

Steve Brown wrote it as a sketch on Jammin' too.

Good old Steve 'what happened?' Brown.

[The Mumbler]

Ben Elton writing Ben Elton - The Musical actually could be interesting.  Not necessarily funny, of course.  Did the man really write 20 plays at Manchester University?  

So what's going to be in this one, then?  He pretends to be a cockney, but he's (ha!) from, like, a well-off background, unlike all other comedians ever, of course.  He pretends to be left-wing but later on writes something with someone who isn't left-wing.  No other comedian's ever done that, obviously.  He wears a spangly suit in Act 2, there's probably a song called "I Performed For George W. Bush Ho-Ho".

Why would anyone pay money to see this?  If it deconstructed every edition of Saturday Live or something, it might pass the time.  

Stewart Lee seems to use every single appearance on Radio 4 to repeat his views about We Will Rock You.  He was doing it on the appalling All The Way From Memphis the other week.  I'm not quite sure why - is it a deliberate ploy, or does he just have no material at the moment?  Or do people keep coming up to him and saying "We loved Jerry Springer - The Opera, we went to see it last year, around the same time as We Will Rock You."  

Quite what Richard Herring's excuse is for continually mentioning Ben Elton, fuck only knows.  To wink at 20 people who read Warming Up, probably.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

I bet you a pint of Struttock's Olde Bowel Basher that nobody involved in BETM has seen Happy Families.

[Bert Thung]

How many comedians nowadays have enough of  a sense of humour about themselves to a sketch like the "Benny Elton" one  he did on Harry Enfield?

I'd love to see him do Ricky Gervais instead

Salesman - The Musical

[Darrell]

I'd love to see him do Ricky Gervais instead

Salesman - The Musical

I prefer Arthur Miller's famous play about the second series of Extras flopping.

[Jemble Fred]

You mean this has nothing to do with Steve Brown? The 15 Minute Musical was already plagiarising pointlessness. And now we have someone else re-using the idea for a third time? How on Earth do the people involved get the strength to get up in the morning to work on an idea they all must know has already been done twice, and wasn't very interesting either time? Blimey, the humanity!

[lazyhour]

Salesman - The Musical

I prefer Arthur Miller's famous play about the second series of Extras flopping.

Hah!  Very good.  :)

[Bert Thung]

Yeah, very good, took me a minute to get, but still very good.

So can anyone put up this fifteen minute musical? And what was the other one?

[Bert Thung]

Okay, just found a bootleg tape of Ben Elton live in Glasgow from 1985.  I bought it at a record fair 20 years ago and it contains his complete set from him supporting RIk Mayall on a shared tour, a year before he got famous with Saturday Live. Will put it up later this afternoon assuming the folks here are interested. A pretty damn good audience recording.

I saw the show the next night at the Edinburgh Playhouse. If anyone has got Mayall's Kevin Turvey/Rik set from that tour I'd love to hear it.

[benthalo]

Yes please, Bert!

[John Williams]

Okay, just found a bootleg tape of Ben Elton live in Glasgow from 1985.  I bought it at a record fair 20 years ago and it contains his complete set from him supporting RIk Mayall on a shared tour, a year before he got famous with Saturday Live. Will put it up later this afternoon assuming the folks here are interested. A pretty damn good audience recording.

I saw the show the next night at the Edinburgh Playhouse. If anyone has got Mayall's Kevin Turvey/Rik set from that tour I'd love to hear it.

I saw them on the same tour at Nottingham.  They were both fantastic, and it pretty much spoiled me for live comedy ever after.

I'm sure when I saw it Elton reappeared on the side of the stage at some point during Rik's set for some badinage.  Was it just after Rik's nob exploded I wonder?  Oh yes, and didn't Rik go off for an on-mike trip to the toilet via Elton's dressing room?  Wonderful stuff.

[Bert Thung]

They both took a bow together at the end I seem to remember.  Can you remember why Kevin Turvey was wearing a rabbit costume?

EDIT - Thank Stewart Lee for this, who got me so annoyed watching his anti-Ben Elton rant during his stand up special on Paramount, I made a special effort to dig this out of hundreds of audio tapes to prove to myself what a different league old Motormouth was in comparison to that slow talking flavour of the month hack.

Should be ready in 5-10 minutes, depending how megupload is working.

It's 54 mins 30 secs length.

2ND EDIT - Make that 17 minutes from now

[Bert Thung]

Ben Elton -Live in Glasgow 24 November 1985

54 mins 37 secs

50mb

[John Williams]

They both took a bow together at the end I seem to remember.  Can you remember why Kevin Turvey was wearing a rabbit costume?

Was he?  I can't remember that at all.  Terrifying what twenty odd years does to your brain.

[benthalo]

One for the trip home. Thanks for going to the trouble, Bert.

[TJ]

Is that an audience recording, Bert?

[benthalo]

He said "a pretty good audience recording" on the previous page, and he was telling the truth.

[Bert Thung]

Yes it is. I've no idea who recorded it though, having bought it at a stall in 1986. I also got Bad News Live at Castle Donnington from a record fair (just found that too). The only two comedy bootlegs I've ever seen for sale.

[oldfart_sd]

That's amazing Bert! Thanks for uploading this!

Interesting to hear the Pekingese routine a year before he did it on Saturday Live (Here on Youtube).

[benthalo]

Don't think that Bad News gig is doing the rounds, Bert. Always welcome, that sort of thing.

[Barney Sloane]

Cheers Bert!

[Godzilla Bankrolls]

How many people have done the 'Ben Elton - The Musical' joke now? Is it by any chance Every Comedian In The World?

And yourself: http://chilled.cream.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=285830#285830
(also: http://chilled.cream.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=185040#185040 )

This is previewing at the King's Head in Finsbury Park next week, if you dare...

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

And yourself

Yeah, we did it first. With the added twist that we think Elton's really great and have a sneeking suspicion that We Will Rock You is probably quite funny.

I suspect this show will be a two-hour version of the scene in Extras where the 'sad' bloke offers Gervais some WWRY tickets and Gervais turns to the camera and says 'Eh lads? Why can't he be into cool American comics instead? You know, ones that are more like me?'. Well, he dunked his head in the soup, but that's how I interpreted it.

[Darrell]

I suspect this show will be a two-hour version of the scene in Extras where the 'sad' bloke offers Gervais some WWRY tickets and Gervais turns to the camera and says 'Eh lads? Why can't he be into cool American comics instead? You know, ones that are more like me?'. Well, he dunked his head in the soup, but that's how I interpreted it.

In Extras it was phrased as "Ben Elton's We Will Rock You" too, just to get an added sneer in. Even though no-one, not even Ben Elton's PA, has ever called it that ever.

I've never seen WWRY and doubt I'd personally get a lot out of it, but there are absolute scores of intelligent, discerning people who think it's tremendous. Including noted proper-comedy fan/scholar and executive producer of Queen reissues Rhys Thomas, I recall.

To be honest Ben Elton really isn't in the same league as US comedians like Larry David, Christopher Guest, Garry Shandling, Larry David, Ricky Gervais and SYNTAX ERROR LOAD 50

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

I flicked through the libretto (yes, libretto) of WWRY once and had a few giggles. What baffles me is the widely-held assumption that it's not meant to be funny - it clearly is. People sneer at the way he's tenuously built scenes around the Queen songs, but if you read the thing it's obvious that said tenuousness is part of the joke. I mean, how could it not be?

I get the idea that the WWRY-sneerers know full-well that it's tongue in cheek, but can't afford to acknowledge this in case thy end up praising Elton. Far easier to play the 'Crap musicals anyone?' card.