Ben Elton exclusive: ‘It’s a myth you can’t speak freely anymore’

Although it happens after our meeting, the Stewart-Shakespeare brouhaha seems in keeping with our conversation. 

While concerned at the modern tendency to take offence, the stand-up legend, Shakespeare superfan and Upstart Crow creator strongly believes context is king when it comes to free speech. Unlike many of his generation, Ben, 60, does not think the ability to say what you want has been constrained by what’s now derisively termed “wokeness”. 

He says: “Most stuff that’s ­dismissed as political correctness, I tend to ­support. I think it’s a myth that you can’t say anything anymore. Because you can, you can say anything. 

“Most of the rules are about respecting people. It comes down to good manners. Say whatever you like… but try to say it pleasantly.” 

Lightning fast, and often correcting himself mid-stream, or mitigating a more controversial point, he is ­tremendously good company 

And he loves to talk, joking self-deprecatingly at one point: “That was a big waffle, wasn’t it?” 

But while Ben remains sanguine about free speech, his own Shakespeare, brought brilliantly to life by David Mitchell in his critically acclaimed BBC sitcom The Upstart Crow and arriving on stage in the West End next week, is only too aware of its dangers. 

Ben, the creator and writer of iconic shows like The Young Ones and Blackadder, concedes: “These days you can lose your job for the wrong phrase. In Shakespeare’s day, if you offended power, the king or a patron, you lost your head!” 

Many of our current problems, he insists, come from the negative, divisive impact of social media on human interaction and political discourse. 

“When we’re all alone on the internet, our humanity deserts us. We are no longer constrained by that which makes us human which is being a social animal. Context is lost on the internet, and context is everything.” 

He strongly dislikes our habit of mistaking social media for the wider world – taking a couple of angry tweets as proof of outrage on behalf of one group or another. 

“Two people have tweeted their outrage and they’re entitled to that opinion, but they do not represent everybody else who has the same trouser content or sexuality,” he says. “It’s extremely worrisome that we tend to see a single tweet or two as a tidal wave of outrage.” 

While he admits his “soul is very much in the camp of political correctness”, he has taken some creative risks by inventing cod Shakespearian terms that are funny and rude without (hopefully) causing offence. 

“My Shakespeare, although confused, middle-class and middle-aged like me, is clearly somebody whose heart is in the right place,” he laughs. 

“The first time I used the term ‘hugger tugger’ I thought, ‘Am I going to get in trouble?’ I invented it as a comically affectionate – but I ­suppose some people could ask, ‘Is that derogatory?’ – term for gay people. 

“But I know many gay people and I’ve been delighted to hear how much fun’s been had with it.” 

Upstart Crow’s other witty linguistic creations include “arsingmongle”, “bumshank”, “tuffting muffles” and the “cod dangle”. 

Ben, whose recent novel Identity Crisis tackled the current obsession with identity politics, adds quickly that he is using them as a “deeply ­liberal man”, before continuing: “But the fact is all people have humour whatever their sexuality, whatever their gender identity, whatever their race. My experience as a stand-up comic is that we share a sense of humour. That’s how you can have a thousand individuals in a theatre all laughing at the same thing.” 

He is proud of having created an original stage show without stealing from his TV sitcom. 

Following his son Hamnet’s death at the end of series three on TV, Shakespeare is now more reflective, suffering a crisis of confidence in his writing and alienated from his two daughters.

It’s a perfect set-up for a King Lear take-off and its author has pulled together a deeply satisfying plot with a nod to Othello, Romeo And Juliet and The Comedy Of Errors among others, containing plenty of belly laughs and wise ­contemporary nods. “I might have pinched from Shakespeare, but what I haven’t done is stolen from myself,” beams Ben. “I’ve had to strike a balance between my commitment to a completely original stage play based on the sitcom and maintaining the love people have for it.” 

The TV series was ­written with David Mitchell, 45, in mind as Shakespeare. Ben continues: “When we started to cast it, I said we needed a young David Mitchell, because Shakespeare was about 30 at the time and David was too old. But we realised, in those days, if you lived to 30 you’d be an old man, so let’s have the real David Mitchell. 

“There is an eternal youth about David, that fabulous open face which masks such a fierce intelligence. I wanted his voice and I got his voice and we became instantly very close friends.” 

The actor, who is carrying the role on to the stage, joked this week that doing Crow in theatre is the same, except he’ll “have to talk louder”. 

Sadly, not all the TV cast appear because of the commercial costs of producing a large stage show. So there is no Harry Enfield as Shakespeare’s dad or Liza Tarbuck as his long-suffering wife Anne. 

“It was heartbreaking and I wrote to them all because we were a family and a great team,” says Ben. “But I needed to bring in new characters, too. If people come to see an Upstart Crow play, they won’t see the sitcom rehashed on stage.” 

He remains hopeful the BBC will pick up a fourth series in due course. 

Despite his many triumphs, the writer hasn’t had it all his own way. A 2013 sitcom, The Wright Way, starring David Haig as a hapless health and safety expert, was panned by critics and lasted a mere series.

“David was utterly brilliant. We thought we had a hit. It was ­massively derided and I still love it but it was a flop, it just didn’t work,” says Ben. 

“It’s thrown at you, ‘Oh you were trying to be funny.’ Well first, ‘Yeah, of course I’m trying to be funny, that’s what I do.’ But also, if anyone has ever liked anything, it’s because I wrote what I wanted to write. 

“Blackadder, Young Ones, Thin Blue Line, Upstart Crow, none of them was designed for an audience, they were designed to best express the comic ambitions of the ­creatives making them.” 

His 77-date stand-up tour last year, his first in 15 years, was described by one critic as a “TED talk with gags”, in a nod to his fiercely intelligent one-man ­debating chamber approach. 

Ben admits: “I did it with great trepidation. When I started, I didn’t know after so long whether I would be any good, or would have anything to say in these confusing times. In fact, I felt more comfortable on stage than ever.” 

Ben has three children and lives between the UK and Australia. His familiar tones have taken on an ever so slight Down Under twang, the result of his 32-year relationship with his Australian wife Sophie. 

He is in good shape physically, too, having made the decision in his late 20s to exercise. 

“I like to eat chips, I love Yorkshire puddings, I love to drink. Of course you have to try to keep an eye on it but I certainly exceed by a very great deal of government units,” he laughs.

“I decided I didn’t want to give any of that up ever so I started to exercise. For the first four or five years, doing 45 minutes every day was painful beyond belief.” 

Despite his Nineties reputation as a gobby, Left-wing comic, he is far more nuanced than that one-dimensional persona might suggest.

“I lived through the Eighties but those were troubles of a more ­civilised nature. Do we believe in trade unionism or not? Margaret Thatcher didn’t, I did,” he says. 

“I respected Thatcher as a politician of immense personal integrity. I disagreed fervently with almost everything she believed in, but I respected the fact she did believe in it, she was honest about it and she pursued it to the point of risking her own popularity. That is no longer the case with politicians.” 

Sitcoms aside, he hasn’t had his own show on the TV since 1998 when The Ben Elton Show attracted some seven million viewers. 

“In 2000 I went back and said any chance of another new series,” he says. “But fashion changes and I totally accept that. Up until then, every time I wanted to be on the TV, I could be. They said, ‘Er, no we don’t really feel…’ OK, I’ll write novels then, and I haven’t been able to get back since. 

“The fact that I’m clearly not as famous as I was doesn’t bother me. There was a time when fame was real, there were only three channels and literally everybody in Britain knew who I was. My kids worship people who could sell out Wembley Stadium who I’ve never heard of.” 

He might take heart from the fact his hero Shakespeare is still relevant – and argued over – some 400 years after his death. 

Great writing endures.

• The Upstart Crow plays at the Gielgud Theatre, London, from Friday until April 25. For tickets, visit UpstartCrowTheComedy.com