Ben Elton talks a little bit of politics – and a lot of comedy – as Friday Night Live returns

He might have written sitcoms, musicals and novels, but Ben Elton is under no illusion that for all his prodigious output, for most people he’s defined by the stand-up he did on TV almost 40 years ago.

‘I’ve had to suffer – not suffer,’ he corrects himself. ‘But all my life I've had to deal with the fact that what I did on Saturday Live defined me. I've just published my 16th novel and it's still "sparkly-suited Thatcher-bashing comedian publishes a novel" 40 years after the event…’

You might, then, think that Elton would be reluctant to be hosting the one-off revival on Friday as part of a season celebrating Channel 4’s 40th anniversarye. Not a bit of it.

‘I love it,’ he trills excitedly over Zoom, speaking as fast as he ever did: ‘It’s done me a lot of good. It’s sometimes been  difficult to be defined by the sparkly suit. But I've always wanted to do it again. I love compering a show.’

In fact he’s spent years itching to get a revival of the show – subsequently renamed Friday Night Live as its transmission day changed – off the ground.

‘No one's ever pitched it to me but I've pitched it to them,’ he says. ‘Years have gone by when I've said to whatever broadcaster who will listen, "why doesn't somebody do Friday Night Live/Saturday Live again?"It was a good show. I'm a good compere. I run a tight ship.

‘The whole world of modern stand-up came out [of this]. When we started there was Jongleurs and half a dozen clubs. And by the time we finished, you could get a degree in stand-up comedy and there was a gig in every town. It was a remarkable show. It changed things.’

He recalled pitching the idea to former BBC One controller  Peter Fincham, who feared it would look dated, telling the comedian: "I think that would look a little bit 1980s, wouldn't it?’

‘I think I've had to get quite old to have any chance of being contemporary again,’ he said. And when Channel Four were doing their 40th anniversary he pitched the idea again - this time successfully.

If it feels like the next step on Elton’s return to stand-up. He performed his first tour in decades in 2005 – then waited another 14 years for its follow-up, which is being released as a digital download next Monday.

‘I never gave up stand-up comedy,’ Elton insists. ‘Telly gave up me, which is fine. The world doesn't owe me a living. Morecambe and Wise were only at the very top for about eight years. I've never had the remotest feeling of "Oh, why didn’t they give me another gig?"

‘I had an amazing time in the 1980s and 1990s. I had my own show. And then time came when new faces came along, and that was totally cool. And that coincided with me having kids and I just stopped touring,

‘I was able to be at home and be part of my children's growing up. I did one tour in 2005. And I missed six months of my children when they were five, six years old. I didn't have to do that.

‘So I got out of the habit, but always it was on my mind and my wife – she likes my stand-up – she always said, "you know, you must do it again." Maybe she just wants to get me out of the house.  But eventually the kids grew up, they left and she said "you might as well piss off as well". So I went back on tour.

‘Stand-up comedy for me is a great art form. It's a means of communicating ideas in a way you can’t do with a script. You can't do it with a play or a sitcom. It’s the only truly subjective part of my comic art.

‘So it's not like I feel I've come back to it. It's just I let it go for a little while. And I'm thrilled to get back on the telly. I wasn't expecting that. I think it took this 40th birthday to for [Channel 4] to say, "We’ll dig the old twat out and give him another run."

He’ll be reunited with old regulars like Harry Enfield, Jo Brand and Julian Clary – as well as the those at the vanguard of the latest wave of talent such as  Rosie Jones, Mawaan Rizwan, Jordan Gray, and Sam Campbell. Plus Ronni Ancona, who’s somewhere in between.

‘I don’t know who the newbies are,’ Elton confesses at the round-table interview with Chortle and a handful of other journalists. ‘I’ll meet them on the day and I will love it.

‘I never audition them or choose them. It's nothing to do with me. My job is to keep the show moving. Give everyone a really great introduction. And just keep the vibe going.’

Is he being boastful? Perish the thought… I'd really hate to read, "Ben Elton thinks he’s reason it was a success",’ he says. ‘It was about the whole show. I played my part, shall we say?’

‘I think the live element is incredibly important. I think we should get a lot of credit… it gives it a real edge Terrestrial telly needs to discover more live programmes because it's something we can do that the streamers can't.

‘Everyone is on their phones watching pre-recorded TikToks. Watch a bit a live comedy and see the whites of our eyes as the terror empowers our comedy!’

‘We might fuck up. We're certainly going to be on edge. It's gonna have that extra vibe. With respect Live At The Apollo is not live. It’s recorded. It's edited. I’m not knocking any other show but  Friday Night Live is live…’

As host, he says: ’I model myself on Tommy Trinder, Bruce Forsyth, Tarby – Tarby [Jimmy Tarbuck] was a great compere And I think I'm pretty good compere.’

That a stand-up who emerged from disruptive, anti-establishment wave of alternative comedy takes his inspiration from the comics who hosted ITV variety institution Sunday Night At The London Palladium in the 1950s and 1960s may come as a surprise. But Elton – who int he 1980 wwas the second resident compere at the fledgling Comedy Store after Alexei Sayle and co-creator of the genre-redefining Young Ones – doesn’t see it that way.

He insists: ‘I was an establishment figure when I was 21 – I had a sitcom on the BBC.’

And he says he was never as much of a rabid socialist as some newspapers portray him. Nor as those who think he sold out – co-writing musicals with Andrew Lloyd Webber for example – might  think.

‘Yes I'm socially liberal. But I've never been the raving lefty that the Daily Mail wants me to be,’  he says. ‘And I've never been the pale pink Tory that the likes of Mark Thomas want to say I am either.

‘I've been consistent, I'm quite proud of that. Welfare state and community values. I love a crowded park, and a well-run public transport system. That's my politics.

‘I’m not anti-establishment, I’m anti the bits of the establishment I think are shithouse. And I'm pro the bits of the establishment, I think are great: the BBC, Channel 4, the NHS…’

Channel 4’s anniversary celebrations come as the broadcaster is at risk of privatisation – although the threat seems to have receded now Nadine Dorries is no longer Culture Secretary and the Tories have slightly bigger crises on their hands.

‘[She] didn't even know Channel 4 doesn't get any subsidy off the taxpayer! That’s despite the fact that she was spearheading the efforts to privatise it. This is insanity. This is irresponsible, it is morally bankrupt,’ Elton says incredulously, before dropping a line that should see off any claims he’s a Leftie for good.

‘I've got a lot of respect for serious Tory politicians and I met a few. I’m quite friendly with John Major – but at the moment, literally, the lunatics and the children are running it.

‘A Conservative government invented Channel 4, and they should be proud of it. But I think Channel 4 will prove it's running well It's a brilliant seedbed for new producers and new talent. I love it.’

Of course he as good reason for that, conceding it defined his career. ‘As a writer, The Young Ones, Blackadder, nobody knew who I was. It wasn't till I went "ladies and gentlemen…" in my Sellafield suit that I defined who I was. it’s been good and bad, but you know, I've got no regrets.’

If the very phrase ‘ladies and gentlemen’ might be considered problematical in these days of gender fluidity, 63-year-old Elton is asked the inevitable question about whether the comedy scene changed has changed since his heyday.

‘Not as much as people think,’ is his verdict. ’It's only changed in that I’m a lot greyer and my hair’s a lot thinner.’

‘There's this idea now that you can't say anything but I've just done a tour of 150 dates and nobody walked out or was bored. So clearly I can say something.

‘I think it's always about attitude. To me, the landscape is within. The landscape is about your own moral compass.

‘‘We are going through a massive period of social flux when attitudes in terms of race, gender privilege are changing, at a head-spinning pace. So that's exciting. And that's got to be a good place for comedy as well.

‘I do quite a lot of material about being a man who used to be part of the change – I was young and groovy and on Channel 4 – and now I'm looking at the change in my children's lives and attitudes. But I can be funny about that.

‘To get controversial for a moment. I was disturbed they cancelled Jerry Sadowitz [at the Edinburgh Fringe]

‘I've never seen his act – he’s always slagging me off – but he's very well known as a controversial, offensive comedian. So it seemed a bit weird to close his show because some of the audience felt unsafe. I mean, really? Unsafe? That's pushing it a bit, isn't it?

‘I do think we've got to be a little bit careful about that, about people beginning to be scared that they're gonna get twittered and twattered and get cancelled. And suddenly everybody is minding their p's and q's. There's a bit of that going on.

‘But I will continue to say exactly what I think and trust my own moral compass to not offend, but only intrigue and perhaps confront occasionally. I hope I've never been an offensive comedian except people who don't like rude jokes .’

He said he wouldn’t even have banned Bernard Manning, who represented everything sexist and racist the alternative movement were trying to drive out of comedy.

‘Bernard Manning was a brilliant comedian,’ Elton says, perhaps surprisingly. ‘Eighty per cent – well, not 80 – but a lot of the time, he's not being offensive and he's doing great stuff.

‘His stuff on on race was deeply divisive and horribly bullying – it basically exploited an emerging community who were vulnerable and needed space to grow not to be bullied and beaten  down by the majority in the audience.

‘There is a level but that level’ got to be carefully thought about before we start banning opinions. And no, I wouldn’t have banned Bernard Manning.’

Though he has no trouble with content warnings on old shows – including his own.

‘If you see blackface depicted in a piece, I think it's worth saying, "Look, this this was made in a different time", and you should know it's coming.

‘I don't have a huge problem with it. It can get bit silly, but, you know, we can live with it. When society's gears change sometimes there's a few irritations. But when you get through it, actually, it's okay.

‘When people talk to me about "political correctness gone mad"… but on the other hand every single bog-standard human right that we now consider inalienable was once considered political correctness gone mad: abolishing slavery… giving women the vote.  For decades, that was considered a fringe idea. The suffragettes were considered PC gone mad

‘I’ve not got much of a problem with a trigger warning on Blackadder. I don't think anybody takes any notice.’

• Friday Night Live is on Channel 4 at 9pm on Friday. Free tickets to be in the studio audience are available here.

• Ben Elton Live, recorded earlier this year at Southend's Palace Theatre, is out on digital release on October 24.

Published: 17 Oct 2022