Ben Elton

Preview: Upstart Crow, episode 2

It's great to report that the first episode of Upstart Crow was not a fluke. Writer Ben Elton repeats the trick again in the second episode. In fact if there is a problem here it isn't so much that this week's episode is like Blackadder, it's more a case that it is too much like last week's episode.

Review: Upstart Crow

While I didn't feel a hankering to watch more, and there weren't many laugh-out-loud moments, Upstart Crow deserves some time to find its feet. The cast are good, the concept has potential, and Ben Elton's on surer ground than The Wright Way debacle of 2013.

Loving Ben Elton's new Shakespeare sitcom

There's no way of saying this without shredding the last vestiges of my critical credibility, but this new Ben Elton comedy series, Upstart Crow (BBC2, Mondays), about William Shakespeare: I'm loving it and think it's really, really funny.

Review: Upstart Crow, BBC Two

David Mitchell, like all the cast, is superb, and his pedantic, sarcastic panel show persona works beautifully for the put-upon Will. Ben Elton's script is a gag-rich riot of clever comedy, the kind that has to be watched at least twice to appreciate all the jokes and references, the sight gags and throwaways. Complete joy from start to finish.

Ben Elton finds the comedy in Shakespeare's history

With David Mitchell playing the Bard as a flowery show-off, there's lots to enjoy in this knockabout sitcom with Liza Tarbuck.

I'd been looking forward to this new series. It's a sitcom about Shakespeare, written by Ben Elton and starring David Mitchell and so, naturally, anyone with half a brain would be anticipating it. But perhaps I set my expectations too high as it was a disappointment.

Mitchell plays Shakespeare, trying to keep his temper as he composes Romeo and Juliet in his messy kitchen while his family deride his work. He asks his teenage daughter to recite Juliet's words and she responds like every modern teenager when faced with Shakespeare's ornate language: "I don't say stuff like this, Dad. I'd sound like a complete turnip!" Yet he can hardly made it sound like authentic teenspeak: "Ugh. Shut up, Romeo. You're so weird. I hate you."

Things perk up when Elton makes some digs at privilege and the upper classes, mocking "the English posh boy" and their membership of Oxbridge clubs like The Fisted Peasant. It's funny in places but not quite big enough for its boots.

Ben Elton talks about Upstart Crow

As Ben Elton gives the Bard the sitcom treatment in Upstart Crow, he argues that Bill suffered from class prejudice then - and is still suffering from it now...

What's in a name? When it's Ben Elton, quite a lot, considering his new sitcom marks the writer's return to a historical setting for the first time since Blackadder. The principal character in this comedy should offer more meticulous wordplay than Bladders could: the action revolves around one William Shakespeare (David Mitchell). Sadly, this veers towards Elton's insufferable The Wright Way, with double-entendre-strewn dialogue masking a distinct lack of laughs.

Upstart Crow review

Gadzooks! After some high-profile flops in both hemispheres, Ben Elton has rediscovered his mojo... and all it took was a return trip to Elizabethan England.

Ben Elton's Shakespeare sitcom was not too Bard

Its sitcom format feels lumbering and it has a complacent tendency to rely on David Mitchell's waspish delivery of cod-Shakespearese - but, since it's the poor chap's anniversary, I could give it one more chance next week. Not quite Bard yet, then.