Comic sense and sensibility _{by Alessia Belsito-Riera}

When his 150-date tour ends in May, British writer and comedian Ben Elton knows exactly what he’ll be doing.

“On the last night of the tour in Christchurch it’s my birthday and I’m 66. I will be officially a pensioner,” he laughs. “I’ve booked a holiday in the Southern Alps in a wonderful chalet. I can’t wait. Come on? New Zealand is a very, very beautiful country!”

Until that day arrives, the godfather of modern comedy has a slew of shows to deliver around the world and across Aotearoa, including one in Pōneke at the Michael Fowler Centre on the 26^th of April. If by some chance you don’t recognise the multi-award-winning, multi-hyphenate creative powerhouse’s name right off the bat, perhaps you’ll be familiar with some of his credits, which include TV shows Blackadder, The Young Ones, and Saturday Live, and Olivier Award-winning musical We Will Rock You. Not to mention 16 novels, six of which became number one bestsellers.

Read on for a sneak peek into Elton’s new critically acclaimed stand-up show Authentic Stupidity.

What do you love about comedy in general and stand-up in particular?

It’s been my life. I’ve always felt this calling, this ongoing urge to express myself via comic sensibility. I address very serious things often, sometimes very silly things. Sometimes, silly and serious can be the same. Stand-up comedy is a very specific thing for me. It’s something that I started 45 years ago, and I’ve only very recently come to terms with how much I appreciate doing it. I used to hate it. I did it because it was a way of earning a living, of getting my wares about the place. Now I value it very deeply as a form of self-expression. My material was always about me, my attitude, and what I felt about the world. But I didn’t enjoy that, whereas now, being older, everything sort of matters less, and in that respect it can matter more. I don’t have anything to prove – people know me, so I can relax and really enjoy the whole process of communicating with the audience, of writing a really tightly constructed routine. I’ve got to connect with every individual imagination in that theatre full of people, connect genuinely and privately with each one, and form a dialogue, because I don’t work a crowd. What I deliver is essentially a one-person play. My routines have always been carefully written, carefully structured. They live on stage, they can change a little depending on how the audience are enjoying it, but it’s a complex set of ideas that I’ve thought a lot about and I’ve come to deliver. I’m not going on stage in the hope that I can find the funny in the crowd; I’ve got my funny, all I’ve got to do is make them see it.

Tell me about your new show! Where does the title Authentic Stupidity come from?

I don’t normally give my tours titles… I’ve always just been Ben Elton Live because when I started, terrestrial TV was still king. I was lucky: I made a big impact, everybody knew who I was, everybody knew what I did very quickly, because there were only three channels in Britain when I started, then for the next 20 years it was only four. People knew I had a say, and if they didn’t like it, they didn’t have to watch but they knew what I did. I’m doing what I’ve always done, because what I’ve always done is Authentic Stupidity. I unpack the essential absurdity of humanity, our place in the world, our place with each other. I could have called any of my tours Authentic Stupidity. I did it this time simply because it was a nice little joke. Everyone was talking about artificial intelligence. We’ve invented machinery that will replace us. How stupid are we to let that happen? We’ve allowed a bunch of unelected, unaccountable, tax-avoiding billionaires in California to foist this technology on us without any thought of the social repercussions in terms of employment, in terms of our imaginations. 15 years ago they invented the smartphone, and we went, ‘Oh, great, we all have a smartphone’. Now children don’t have a childhood anymore. Nobody is accountable for the repercussions of this extraordinary technology which is gathering pace. We were all talking about the threat of artificial intelligence, and I thought, well, the real threat is actually stupidity, the fact that we, as humans, fail to organise ourselves for the community and allow individuals to exploit us.

I talk about artificial intelligence for maybe five minutes. The rest is just what I always do: me on the world, me on my own inadequacies, my own fears, and sharing them and finding the connections with the audience; that we’re all feeling the same fears and exhilarations.

What other topics do you touch on?

Anything and everything. It’s interesting, for the first time ever I’ve had people say to me after a show, ‘You’re a bit brave’. And what they’re saying is that I talk about gender, I talk about trans, I talk about identity. Isn’t it interesting that the mere fact that you’re talking about something makes people on edge? I do talk a little bit about the fact that we’re in a period when everyone’s divided by ideas. They’re fearful of speaking or they’re speaking too much; they’re sure of themselves or they are completely confused. One of the things that’s quite new about me as a comic now from when I was younger is that now I’m an older person dealing with ideas that have come from young people. It’s quite unique for me and I’m in a very interesting position. I’ve been a comic for 45 years, so I was a very young comedian in my early 20s, laying down the law. I was very sure of myself and my feelings. I talked a lot about politics and our place in the world. I knew what I thought. Now, I’m not clear about what I think, because there are a lot of young people being like me 40 years ago. They’re telling me their truth, and they’re saying, ‘This is how we see the world, and we expect you to see the world as we do’, which is something I did myself. Now I’m the old person going, ‘Sh*t, I need to think about this. This is going to take me a minute, because this is quite a surprising new idea’. I am investigating that. I was basing my comedy on what I knew, and now I’m basing my comedy on what I’m trying to understand. I’m unpacking my bewilderment. It turns out that this resonates a great deal, and it’s the most critically acclaimed tour I’ve ever done!

You’ve done heaps of sold-out shows in New Zealand over the years. What keeps you coming back?

My life took a big turn when in 1986 I met an Australian girl. We ended up getting married, and so my Antipodean life was set. I’m now a joint Australian and British citizen. I am a great lover of the countryside. I love rugged countryside. Sophie comes from WA, which is very much a beach and desert state. Personally, I love Scotland and North Wales. So my favourite Australian state for walking is Tasmania and New Zealand is like that – I love New Zealand, it’s my taste.