Identity Crisis

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The title is Identity Crisis, and if there's a crisis in the book, it's about public discourse and public debate, and the way we're beginning to misunderstand each other and [how those] misunderstandings are being amplified online. Sometimes [it's]deliberately, sometimes it's just a natural human instinct to enjoy outrage and enjoy a fight." But my insight, the one I had but didn’t express, was that although we live in an era of instant communication, the world Elton describes is one in which we are no more accurately informed than the French citizens who overthrew a king. Greer was once on the right side of history and like her fictional counterpart, Giffard, could not have foreseen the ground shifting beneath her feet. Many French citizens who lost their heads during the French Revolution may have been equally surprised when what started as a revolution for equality became a bloodbath at the foot of the guillotine. In Elton’s novel, time and again, chronicles the same process of the shifting tides of opinion, and the variable fortunes of protagonists, some horrible, some of whom are moral, well-intentioned people. Yet both can be deemed toxic and find themselves on the wrong side of history in the combative arena of social media. That was my insight. How is it possible to be so trenchant and angry when we know that history alone will judge us? If Elton’s novel is about anything it is this: the need for perspective and conversation, not abuse.

a b c Guardian Staff (24 May 2000). "Ben Elton: from Peter Pan to Maybe Baby". The Guardian . Retrieved 21 October 2022. Elton sees stupid future". Star Times. Archived from the original on 30 January 2008 . Retrieved 1 November 2009.In April 2007, Get a Grip, a new show, began on ITV1. Featuring comic sketches similar to those on The Ben Elton Show and staged studio discussion between Elton and 23-year-old Alexa Chung, the show's aim was to "contrast Elton's middle-aged viewpoint with Chung's younger perspective" (although Elton was responsible for the scripts). Moreton, Cole (11 November 2014). "Ben Elton, interview: 'Michael Gove made an arse of himself' ". The Daily Telegraph . Retrieved 23 April 2015. The Upstart Crow, like the TV series Upstart Crow, a comic version of William Shakespeare's life and society, and sharing some of the same actors and characters, opened in London on 7 February 2020. Starring David Mitchell as Shakespeare and Gemma Whelan as Kate, the play was intended to run until 25 April 2020, but only ran up to mid-March, with the remainder cancelled as a result of restrictions put in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic. [45] The play reopened in the West End at the Apollo Theatre for a ten-week season from 23 September until 3 December 2022. Actually, Mike, gotta say, I don’t really use the word “victim”,’ Kate said, ‘particularly when describing a woman who’s suffered as assault. It disempowers her and diminishes her humanity.’

Friday Night Live announces star-studded line-up for Channel 4 return". Radio Times . Retrieved 21 October 2022. Someone who does not identify with traditional gender distinctions but may identify with neither, both or a combination of genders

About Me

Elton played Verges in Kenneth Branagh's film adaptation of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, also in 1993. [35] Behind the camera [ edit ] A police investigation into sexual abuse allegations, particularly against Jimmy Savile, a media personality. Elton references Yewtree and Savile in his novel. It’s easy to laugh at the contortions language is forced to perform in the service of saying the right thing, and that is certainly an aspect of this novel. But Elton intends not just to call out the loony leftist latte-drinking feminazi orthodoxy. The very vehemence of this appellation suggests that the problem is about conversation: that in a world in which the conversation takes place across relatively anonymous social networks involving a multiplicity of views and identities, that the possibility of a civil conversation is tenuous.

While in bit parts in his own TV series, he began professional film acting as CD in Stark, the Australian/BBC TV series adaptation of his novel, in 1993. This was directed by Nadia Tass and filmed in Australia. To speak in such a way as to demean anothers from different religious, ethnic or sexual orientations Elton became a stand-up comedian primarily to showcase his own writing, but became one of Britain's biggest live comedy acts. [19] After a regular slot on Saturday Live – later moved and renamed Friday Night Live – which was seen as a UK version of the US's Saturday Night Live, he became the host of the programme.

This is, of course, treacherous ground that Elton is treading but I think he strikes just the right notes and the book genuinely asks some fairly sobering questions about the direction our online, social media-driven society is taking. It may upset some, I'd be surprised if it didn't, but I'm more than happy to say I very much enjoyed it from start to finish!