Brace yourself Adelaide, the incredibly brilliant Ben Elton has announced he is returning to Her Majesty’s Theatre in 2025 with his brand new show, Authentic Stupidity!
Ben Elton’s multi-award-winning career spans over four decades and includes seminal and groundbreaking television shows (The Young Ones, Blackadder, Upstart Crow), West End plays (Popcorn, Upstart Crow), West End musicals (We Will Rock You, The Beautiful Game, Close up: The Twiggy Musical), best-selling novels (Stark, Dead Famous, Two Brothers) and feature films (Maybe Baby, Three Summers, All is True).
The world has changed a lot since Ben last toured – a whole new existential threat has emerged to challenge our very existence: Artificial Intelligence. Apparently, it’s going to render all human life meaningless, but Ben is here to warn you that AI is not the greatest threat that we face; it’s Authentic Stupidity!
Ben Elton spoke to Glam Adelaide about the tour, his shows and if the creative arts and writing is where he always saw himself forging such a successful career.
“Ever since I was a boy, I wanted to be a writer. The creative arts is where I pointed my life from the age of 11. There was a local amateur dramatic society putting on a production of Peter Pan, and I auditioned and had three nights at the local village hall, and I played one of lost boys. I very briefly imagined the dread of being an actor. By the time I was 11 or 12, I started reading Peter Woodhouse’s novels and my mum took me to see Hay Fever – a Noel Coward play. I very quickly decided that I want to be a writer. Then by the time I was 12, I wanted to be a comic writer. So in that respect, I’m very lucky. I formed my ambition very early, and I was able to fulfill it very early, and I’m still doing it right now. Stand-up comedy, which is what I’m doing now, is very much me as a writer as well, because I write my own routines, but that was never an ambition of mine.”
Ben shared with Glam his writing process when he sets out to write new material.
“When I was a kid I’d wake up with my mind racing and couldn’t get back to sleep until I had written my thoughts down. But these days I now have my ideas when I go to my desk and I try to stay there as long as I can. I know how to turn it off. I’ve spent my life as a writer, and I have no intention of retiring. I think when you’re in the creative arts, you never slow down.”
One of Ben’s biggest stage shows was We Will Rock You. We asked Ben where the concept of this show came from and how he was able to collaborate with the mega-super group Queen.
“It’s funny – the critics were absolutely horrendous when it first opened. It’s sort of like they didn’t get the jokes. The idea came to me when I was in an exhausted state pushing my twins around a park. I was very lucky that Queen had come to me and said they would be interested in collaborating with me. We wanted it to be a comedy and when I pitched the idea to them, they loved it. I’ve been very close friends with Brian May and Roger Taylor ever since. We Will Rock You was a real gift for me.”
The Authentic Stupidity tour commences in Perth at Astor Theatre on March 13 2025, followed by Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, Canberra, Thirroul, Newcastle, Brisbane, and concluding on April 3 at HOTA on Gold Coast.
“I love coming to Adelaide and have been doing so since the 80s. I honestly can’t wait to get back to your wonderful city. Her Majesty’s Theatre is a great venue and it’s always a wonderful night. In my new show I’m unpacking the essential insanity and inanity of being human. I’ve called it Authentic Stupidity this time, as a bit of a rip on the artificial intelligence which is really becoming our biggest threat. We’ve allowed a bunch of unelected, unaccountable, tax avoiding billionaires floating in their yachts off Malibu and blasting off in their phallic shaped rockets to their private airspaces to invent technology that they themselves admit will put us out of work – how stupid are we? So in this show I’ll be doing what I always do, which is having a big laugh about myself and my world and sharing that with the audience and discovering that wonderful thing which comedy does.
”We’re all different, but we share so many foibles, little conceits, little exhilarations, loves, hates, etc. My job is to sort of explore that. This tour’s already 50 days old, so I know it’s going great. I’m really proud of the new show. It seems to be going better than ever so by the time I get to Adelaide, it’s gonna be as good as new.”
Ben Elton’s Authentic Stupidity will be performed in Adelaide on Tuesday March 18 at Her Majesty’s Theatre.
Tickets for all shows go on sale at 9am on Tuesday November 12, with the exception of Canberra, going on sale at 9am on Thursday November 14. My Live Nation members can secure tickets first during the exclusive pre-sale beginning Monday November 11 at 10am, running until Tuesday, November 12 at 8am.
For complete tour and ticket information, visit: benelton.live & livenation.com.au
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