A cunning plan! Could Ben Elton bring back Blackadder?
More than 40 years after the unlucky antihero first appeared on TV screens, the writer who helped to bring him to life is thinking about a comeback
September 2023
Close-Up: The Twiggy Musical review – Ben Elton’s strange and sentimental snapshot
Observer New Review Q&A
Ben Elton: ‘Any time period would make a good Blackadder with the right jokes’
June 2023
We Will Rock You review – Ben Elton stars as royally ridiculous Queen musical returns
Rousing songs but threadbare plot as Earth has been conquered, renamed iPlanet and – inexplicably – can only be saved by a band of rock’n’rollers
October 2022
The Liz Truss gags flowed like No 10 plonk: Friday Night Live proves our best satirists are in their 60s
From Ben Elton’s electrifying political routine to Harry Enfield’s force-10 performance, Channel 4’s comedy programme showed that nobody does spiky topicality better than 1980s stars
March 2021
Watched with mother
Kerry Godliman: 'Ben Elton is often overlooked as a standup'
The After Life and PRU star and comic recounts her love of anarchic late night live TV, from Friday Night Live to The Word
February 2020
The Upstart Crow review – a sitcom ripe for a theatrical remake
The Upstart Crow review – authentically Shakespearean right down to the puffling pants
October 2019
Ben Elton review – bracing return of a sexagenarian all at sea
Fifteen years since he last performed standup, Elton’s new show humbly embraces the madness of the modern world
September 2019
Ben Elton's return to standup: 'I’m as scared as I get'
David Mitchell and Ben Elton's Upstart Crow sitcom to become stage show
February 2019
All Is True review – Kenneth Branagh and Ben Elton’s witty Bard biopic
Branagh directs and stars in this convincing and elegant imagining of Shakespeare’s final years
January 2019
2019 arts preview
Decadence and dystopia: the unmissable theatre, dance and comedy of 2019
Blanchett and Hiddleston get sexual, there are chills in a Glasgow tower block, Matthew Bourne takes on the star-crossed lovers, plus Catherine Tate, Tim Minchin and Ben Elton return to the road
December 2018
All Is True review – Kenneth Branagh and Ben Elton's poignant Bard biopic
First trailer for Kenneth Branagh's Shakespeare drama All Is True released
August 2018
‘Shakespeare was an overworked commuter’: David Mitchell and Ben Elton quiz each other
A new series of Upstart Crow, starring David Mitchell as Shakespeare and written by Ben Elton, begins this week. They quiz each other about life, love and drinking too much
March 2018
Cate Blanchett joins stars signing open letter that calls on Australia to protect screen industry
Gillian Armstrong, Peter Weir, Rose Byrne and Richard Roxburgh among 215 people who have put names to appeal
August 2017
Snobbery is killing the great British sitcom, says Ben Elton
Three Summers review – Ben Elton's folk music festival comedy misses a few notes
October 2016
Gunge, gophers and Kylie in a box: what happened to Saturday morning kids' TV?
Shows such as Tiswas and Going Live! were bastions of British entertainment, but now they’ve been replaced by wall-to-wall TV chefs. We celebrate its golden era and ask where it went
