21 Things said in interviews (Ben Elton)
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This article is from the Ben Elton FAQ, by Andrew Wong andrew@theyoungones.com with numerous contributions by others.
21 Things said in interviews (Ben Elton)
Work
* "Most of my work isn't directly autobiographical. It tends to be an
amalgam of things I've seen and heard and thought and conversations
I've had." - X-Press - an Australian newspaper
* "Most of my stand-up comedy is about being a small, scared, neurotic
individual among the billions of other small, scared, neurotic
individuals that make up the mass which is us. I always think the
first target of a stand-up comic should be themselves - we all share
our weaknesses and it's fun to use them as a source of comedy." -
Australian Sunday Times, July 31 1994
* "Prevarication is the absolute essence of any endeavour, but it's not
just writing novels, it could be the situation of paying a gas bill.
People will basically do anything to avoid doing the thing that
they're supposed to be doing..." - X-Press
* "I'm less nervous now than I used to be (about stand-up). It's still
quite tense, you have to approach it with quite an amount of
intellectual commitment because you've got two hours of material to
get across and that's a long argument to be having one-sidedly."-
X-Press
* "You can't discuss what 'they' (the critics) call you... It's hurtful,
but it's all part of the game, innit?" - Radio Times
* "... even if it sounds pretentious, which it isn't - I've found it
artistically challenging to produce a monologue that is filled with
laughter and ideas. It's a tough thing to pull off, but satire is
better if it has conviction behind it." - Radio Times, December 1993
* "I try hard not to preach, but I get carried away, which is a mistake,
but it's a risk worth running. When the act works, it's not remotely
`preachy'." - Radio Times, December 1993
* "Yes, OK, farty is a silly word. I wish I'd never used it. I'm 34.
Perhaps it was a word for my 20s." - Radio Times, December 1993
* "I don't know about the super-highways - it's a load of techno-wank,
frankly..." - X-Press
Politics
* "We've all got to look at ourselves, start with yourself, that's all
you can do. I believe that we can act responsibly as a group, it's
just that there are vested interests telling us not to bother." -
X-Press
Marriage
* "She has very kindly done me the happiness of saying she will marry
me... I owe my future married happiness to trade union legislation. In
1986, when Rik Mayall and I toured Australia, we had to have a support
act of two Aussies for every one Brit, so they booked an all-girl band
called The Jam Tarts, which she was in." - Radio Times, December 1993
Stark
* "So Ocker and Sly (from STARK) are not Bond and Packer or anything
like that. They are ... not them just as I'm not CD, everything is a
kind of fiction developed out of the things around me." - X-Press
* "I'm not writing the novels to be a preacher, but I obviously feel, as
everybody does strongly about environmental issues. But I'm not a
zealot. I don't think we should all have to wear hessian underwear and
knit our yoghurt." - X-Press
* "My advice to anyone adapting a novel, is that once they've read it,
and learnt to understand it, then they must throw it away and never
look at it again!" - from the TV Times
* "At first, I tried to adapt it in a slavish way, but then realised I
had to discard it, to kill the thing I love. I'm easy to work with,
not a pushover, but I respond to criticism and find it inspiring. In
fact, the mini-series has a better ending than the book." - Radio
Times, Dec 1993
Much Ado About Nothing
* "It's no secret that I wasn't first choice for the part, but I was
just happy to be asked..." - Australian Sunday Times, 31 July 1994
Acting
* "Working with Kenneth (Branagh) was good for my acting, as was working
with Nadia Tass on STARK, but they both had one directing tip for me.
They both told me to stop trying to act as I do tend to mug." -
Australian Sunday Times
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