Pick Up Plays 1: Gasping / Silly Cow / Popcorn Illustrated By Ben Elton Listed As Script
on Plays 1: Gasping / Silly Cow / Popcorn
Elton's plays in one volume for the first time
I've always loved Ben Elton's TV writing, but hadn't read any of his plays, These are all brilliant and they should be produced ALL THE TIME! Especially Popcorn, which is a comedy/action story about a Quentin Tarantinotype director being held hostage by crazed Tarantinoesque fans.
Perfection. Some really good stuff. Seriously.
I actually got to see Gasping in London starring a very young Hugh Laurie, He was brilliant. I was very fortunate.
Hooray for me, This review is now about how cool I supposedly am, which isn't nice, Elton in goede doen. Zwarte komedie, persiflage, uitlachamerikanen. Leuk om lezen. En
toch denk ik altijd aan Blackadder, Found in a charity shop and was curious about it :
Tough to rate overall, because I thought Gasping was brilliantcorporate satire about privatising air, which is hideously prescient!
But his dialogue throughout.
. . Just find his style of comedy needlessly raunchy and not that funny Like he deliberately goes on little riffs in order to add jokes in where the story would be more efficient without them, and I didn't enjoy any of them.
It's like getting cornered by a weird uncle at a party who turns everything into a bad innuendo,
And I found the messages of the other two plays much thinner, which justified the bad jokes even less, Especially because there's such a nastiness to all the characters that I found it hard to care what happened to themnot even to see them get comeuppance,
I bet that if I was in a theatre watching these, and heard the delivery of the jokes, and was amongst a consistently laughing audience, it would take me like a week to figure out that I hadn't found it funny, haha! But it's like they say: a bad production of a good play Sure.
A good production of a bad play Impossible,
Yeah, that's about it : I didnt hate any of the plays, Gasping was interesting. Popcorn wasnt my favorite but I understand it's appeal, British people tend to think rather highly of England and Ben Elton is no exception, I really liked Silly Cow, It's morbid and freakier than the other two but without a body count, It's so clever. It's like the ultimate reverse Truman Show, Think long form improv for an audience of one, It's such a great idea well executed
, I would have loved to see Dawn French perform this piece of fried gold, This collection is consistently good, but Popcorn is by far the best piece in the collection, It grapples with the issue of the representation of violence in movies and who ultimately has responsibility for their actions, It is perhaps one of the most cogent and astute defences of artistic freedom in the media by invoking a practical example of reductio ad absurdum where everybody blames and sues everyone in the short conclusion.
The plot follows the home invasion of a Tarantinoesque filmmaker by the BonnieandClydeinspired Shopping Mall Killers, in a plot somewhat similar to Natural Born Killers, Tarantino was notoriously unhappy with how Oliver Stone adapted his screenplay, which covers similar themes, . . Perhaps this play would have appeased his artistic sensibilities more, whilst also noticing perhaps a subtle critique, Ben Elton was born onMay, in Catford, South London, The youngest of four, he went to Godalming Grammar school, joined amateur dramatic societies and wrote his first play at, He wanted to be a stagehand at the local theatre, but instead did A Level Theatre Studies and studied drama at Manchester University in, His career as both performer and writer encompasses some of the most memorable and incisive comedy of the past twenty years, His ground breaking work as a TV stand up comedian set the high standard of what was to follow, He has received accolades for his hit TV sit coms, The Young Ones, Blackadder and The Thin Blue Line, More recently he has had successes with three hit West End musicals, including the global phenomen Ben Elton was born onMay, in Catford, South London, The youngest of four, he went to Godalming Grammar school, joined amateur dramatic societies and wrote his first play at, He wanted to be a stagehand at the local theatre, but instead did A Level Theatre Studies and studied drama at Manchester University in, His career as both performer and writer encompasses some of the most memorable and incisive comedy of the past twenty years, His ground breaking work as a TV stand up comedian set the high standard of what was to follow, He has received accolades for his hit TV sit coms, The Young Ones, Blackadder and The Thin Blue Line, More recently he has had successes with three hit West End musicals, including the global phenomenon We Will Rock You, He has written three plays for the London stage, including the multi award winning Popcorn, Ben's international bestselling novels include Stark, Inconceivable, Dead Famous and High Society, He won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award for the novel Popcorn, Elton lives in Perth with his Aussie wife Sophie and three children, sitelink.
Gasping: ", . . an often hilarious satire on yuppiedom, advertising and corporate greed" Daily Telegraph ", . . the sharpest futuristic comedy since Henceforward, and the best Green comedy since The Good Life was young, "Financial Times. Silly Cow: "It has an ingenious plot, . . another perfect occasion for a Ben Elton satire on the modern world, . . " Financial Times. Popcorn: "An enjoyable, intelligent, thoughtprovoking play" Independent "It thrills on stage precisely because it adopts the sick humour, sickening violence and downright sexiness of the StoneTarantino school of filmmaking that Elton is satirising" Evening Standard.
I've always loved Ben Elton's TV writing, but hadn't read any of his plays, These are all brilliant and they should be produced ALL THE TIME! Especially Popcorn, which is a comedy/action story about a Quentin Tarantinotype director being held hostage by crazed Tarantinoesque fans.
Perfection. Some really good stuff. Seriously.
I actually got to see Gasping in London starring a very young Hugh Laurie, He was brilliant. I was very fortunate.
Hooray for me, This review is now about how cool I supposedly am, which isn't nice, Elton in goede doen. Zwarte komedie, persiflage, uitlachamerikanen. Leuk om lezen. En
toch denk ik altijd aan Blackadder, Found in a charity shop and was curious about it :
Tough to rate overall, because I thought Gasping was brilliantcorporate satire about privatising air, which is hideously prescient!
But his dialogue throughout.
. . Just find his style of comedy needlessly raunchy and not that funny Like he deliberately goes on little riffs in order to add jokes in where the story would be more efficient without them, and I didn't enjoy any of them.
It's like getting cornered by a weird uncle at a party who turns everything into a bad innuendo,
And I found the messages of the other two plays much thinner, which justified the bad jokes even less, Especially because there's such a nastiness to all the characters that I found it hard to care what happened to themnot even to see them get comeuppance,
I bet that if I was in a theatre watching these, and heard the delivery of the jokes, and was amongst a consistently laughing audience, it would take me like a week to figure out that I hadn't found it funny, haha! But it's like they say: a bad production of a good play Sure.
A good production of a bad play Impossible,
Yeah, that's about it : I didnt hate any of the plays, Gasping was interesting. Popcorn wasnt my favorite but I understand it's appeal, British people tend to think rather highly of England and Ben Elton is no exception, I really liked Silly Cow, It's morbid and freakier than the other two but without a body count, It's so clever. It's like the ultimate reverse Truman Show, Think long form improv for an audience of one, It's such a great idea well executed
, I would have loved to see Dawn French perform this piece of fried gold, This collection is consistently good, but Popcorn is by far the best piece in the collection, It grapples with the issue of the representation of violence in movies and who ultimately has responsibility for their actions, It is perhaps one of the most cogent and astute defences of artistic freedom in the media by invoking a practical example of reductio ad absurdum where everybody blames and sues everyone in the short conclusion.
The plot follows the home invasion of a Tarantinoesque filmmaker by the BonnieandClydeinspired Shopping Mall Killers, in a plot somewhat similar to Natural Born Killers, Tarantino was notoriously unhappy with how Oliver Stone adapted his screenplay, which covers similar themes, . . Perhaps this play would have appeased his artistic sensibilities more, whilst also noticing perhaps a subtle critique, Ben Elton was born onMay, in Catford, South London, The youngest of four, he went to Godalming Grammar school, joined amateur dramatic societies and wrote his first play at, He wanted to be a stagehand at the local theatre, but instead did A Level Theatre Studies and studied drama at Manchester University in, His career as both performer and writer encompasses some of the most memorable and incisive comedy of the past twenty years, His ground breaking work as a TV stand up comedian set the high standard of what was to follow, He has received accolades for his hit TV sit coms, The Young Ones, Blackadder and The Thin Blue Line, More recently he has had successes with three hit West End musicals, including the global phenomen Ben Elton was born onMay, in Catford, South London, The youngest of four, he went to Godalming Grammar school, joined amateur dramatic societies and wrote his first play at, He wanted to be a stagehand at the local theatre, but instead did A Level Theatre Studies and studied drama at Manchester University in, His career as both performer and writer encompasses some of the most memorable and incisive comedy of the past twenty years, His ground breaking work as a TV stand up comedian set the high standard of what was to follow, He has received accolades for his hit TV sit coms, The Young Ones, Blackadder and The Thin Blue Line, More recently he has had successes with three hit West End musicals, including the global phenomenon We Will Rock You, He has written three plays for the London stage, including the multi award winning Popcorn, Ben's international bestselling novels include Stark, Inconceivable, Dead Famous and High Society, He won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award for the novel Popcorn, Elton lives in Perth with his Aussie wife Sophie and three children, sitelink.
Ben Elton