Ben Elton, May 16, 1997

Ben Elton

Melbourne Concert Hall May 15, 16, 17 May, 1997

Reviewed by Kate Herbert on May 15, 1997

Ben Elton is like an over-wound mechanical toy. He careers and twirls and skips across the stage with an awkward grace, bouncing off the microphone, vivid and bubbling like some insane toy soldier.

Unlike the Eveready Bunny, he winds up not down. He is more like a Whirling Dervish or a Juggernaut or some reckless object falling from a very great height.

Or else - just like Ben Elton: fast, furious and funny with an injection of speed laced with Bolshie political fervour. He is alone on stage for well over two hours leaping from topic to topic in a breath-takingly physical routine. He's funky, warm and disarmingly sexy live.

His absorption of Australian culture and politics is total. He has a better grasp of it than most Australian comics which is perhaps a symptom of the outsider's objective eye combined with the incisive mind of a good scholar.

He opens with some clever observations about our political system. What with being Jeffed in Victoria and Costello-ed nationally, Melbourne feels like Britain under Thatcher. Hanson is "the love-child of Bob Menzies and Jo Bjelke-Petersen."

Our sporting life and England's lack of both get a slapping. "If it was a kids' party, you wouldn't let the big kids beat England every time." "Bowl under-arm", "make drinking an Olympic sport". "Sport was invented so men would have something to talk about between beers."

Elton cunningly gives a succinct political diatribe then drops joke bombs all over it. One theme permeating the routine is Cool versus Uncool, the victory of "style over content". He stands up for the Ug booted, the track-suited. "They're mad but they're not killing anyone."  

After too much of the pre-interval 'Men's Group' sperm test, Elton goes into comedy hyper-space after interval, attacking marriage rituals, wine snobbery, "Heroin is cool" image, style fascists. He performs with dynamism and such apparent ease we could be in his living room.

His pet topic is the great global fraud, 'Marketing'. "Next you'll have 'Vegemite Lite' ", 'You can't make chips in a Kettle,' 'I want well-shagged olive oil, not extra-virgin.' He mourns the demise of the Aussie ad. What happened to the gravelly voice that did "Tip-Top's The One'?

Few comics can make  "the globalisation of culture through multi-nationalism" a tasty comedy treat. It was his final routine about road rage on footpaths that is worth the wait. I had tears pouring down my cheeks.

KATE HERBERT