Ben Elton

Benjamin Charles Elton (born 3 May 1959) is a British-Australian comedian, actor, author, playwright, lyricist and director. He was a part of London's alternative comedy movement of the 1980s and became a writer on the sitcoms The Young Ones and Blackadder, as well as continuing as a stand-up comedian on stage and television. His style in the 1980s was left-wing political satire. Since then he has published 17 novels and written the musicals The Beautiful Game (2000), We Will Rock You (2002), Tonight's the Night (2003), and Love Never Dies (2010), the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera. His novels cover the dystopian, comedy, and crime genres. Early life and education Elton was born at University College Hospital in Fitzrovia, London, the son of Mary (née Foster), an English teacher from Cheshire, and physicist and educational researcher Professor Lewis Elton. He is a nephew of the historian Sir Geoffrey Elton and a third cousin of singer Olivia Newton-John. Elton's father is from a German-Jewish family and Elton's mother, who was raised in the Church of England, is of British background. Elton grew up in Catford, south London, before moving with his family to Guildford, Surrey in 1968, where he became involved in amateur dramatics groups. Reflecting on those times at an event in Guildford in 2013, Elton said: Raised in a loving non-religious home, he is an atheist. Elton studied at Stillness Junior School and Godalming Grammar School in Surrey, before leaving home at age 16 to study theatre at South Warwickshire College in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he took and passed A-levels in English, History and Theatre Studies. In 1977 he went to study Drama at the University of Manchester, where he met Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson, and in 1980 he graduated with upper second-class honours. Work