Ben Elton

Ben Elton: Shakespeare is ripe for the sitcom treatment

Ben Elton reveals why Shakespeare was the original sitcom writer.

TV: Upstart Crow, BBC2

Ben Elton's eloquent defence of the mainstream sitcom last month was illuminating, fascinating and persuasive. And in a way maybe it could be seen by some as an incidental pre-emptive strike against critics who might have their hatchets sharpened for the new series of Upstart Crow, Elton's popular sitcom about Shakespeare's early years starring David Mitchell. If that is the case though Elton needn't worry. The only thing he has to live with here is critics trotting out the "not-as-good-as-Blackadder" line.

Ben Elton is wrong: the studio sitcom isn't dying

He's right, up to a point, though "thoughtless" is unfair.

Ben Elton: Snobbery's killing the great British sitcom

Blackadder writer says sitcoms are a 'truly original art form' but now critics and social media pundits dismiss them before they get a chance to grow on people.

It would have been great if The Wright Way had worked. Ben Elton - instrumental in the creation of classics like The Young Ones and Blackadder - had by 2013 completed his transition from comedy hero to punchline (Get a Grip, his current affairs show featuring Alexa Chung, hadn't helped). Elton's place in the narrative of British TV history was becoming incomprehensible. But The Wright Way, sadly, was irredeemably bad.

Centring on an uptight health-and-safety worker called Gerald Wright (your cue to groan internally), we follow the man of the half-hour as he battles with his daughter, her girlfriend Victoria, and his colleagues. For its laughs, The Wright Way mines the topic of health and safety regulation, which is bad enough for the most radically right-on comedian of the 80s. But its main crime has to be the treatment of Beattie Edmondson, who plays Victoria. Jennifer Saunders' daughter was dealt one of the worst hands in sitcom history when she was cast as the cringe-a-second DJ, who recites youth jargon (and Jamaican patois) so awkward it's like she's a 54-year-old father of three channeling the spirit of a 21-year-old (oh...). Elton may have been willing to further sully his name, but he didn't have to drag the next generation down with him.

When Blackadder turned election farce into comedy

"At last we can return to sanity. The mad hysteria is at an end. After the chaos of a general election, we can return to normal." So says Edmund Blackadder at the start of 'Dish and Dishonesty' - the very first episode of Blackadder The Third.

James Meehan on comedy's class issues

James Meehan calls for an end to stereotyping, on and off screening.