'Cutting, crude, rude, hilariously-on-point': Ben Elton brings stand-up show to Birmingham - review

During that decade-and-a-half, whilst he has still be extremely busy writing books, plays and raising his three children in Australia, he hasn’t used any of that time to keep up with television or modern technology – specifically the internet.

But he remains completely on the ball when it comes to politics and what he sees as the injustices still plaguing the world.

And yet he performs his cutting, crude, rude, hilariously-on-point comedy in such a self-depreciating way.

The moral of the entire last night at Birmingham Town Hall, I believe, is you don’t have to agree with everything he says – just as we don’t have to agree with what our friends, colleagues and family believe – but it’s vital we talk, we debate and we argue about our concerns.

'Since when did it seem so wrong to discuss matters that are so important?', he asked, with an obvious leaning towards the current furore engulfing Parliament and the whole Brexit debate.

‘That’s what Parliament and politicians are for,’ he bellowed later in the show, while referencing Michael Gove and his insistence on saying, ‘I think people are fed up with so-called experts’.

‘Do you think he gets a random bloke off the street to discuss where all his hedge-fund profits should be invested? Or does he ask Jo Bloggs to give him a prostate examination rather going to an expert?’

But I’m getting way too ahead of myself already here.

Elton opened his show focussing on the concept of being politically correct, and compared some of today's taboos with the first to suggest slaves should get their freedom, or women should be given the right to vote.

They were all pretty out-there ideas at the time – but not so much now . . .

However, the main focus of the opening section was the internet – or, more precisely, how much he hates it.

The death of Woolworths, which means he no longer has anywhere to buy all his kids' stocking fillers in one morning.

The beauty of getting a watch or Parker pen for Christmas being lost of his children, who have now just use phones and computers.

Or how the likes of Ann Summers has been one of the only shops to actually see a boom in profits in the last 15 years, mainly because they are really just novelty shops, where colleagues can buy each other rude gifts for secret Santa.

That led to side-splitting sketch about chocolate, a drunk Christmas Eve and children banging on the door when the bedroom looked like somehow had soiled themselves.

'I wish Sir Tim Berners-Lee had never been born. He was clever enough to have invented the internet but not clever enough to have kept it to himself, knowing it was going to destroy the world.

'Great for communication, also great for miscommunication – like Trump tweeting lies from the White House toilet – who would've seen that coming?'

These days his children are all grown up so now he and his wife of 36 years are able to watch TV in bed again, which brought us a hilarious few minutes about his take on likes of Channel 4’s Naked Attraction and Sex in a Box. None of what he said is printable, but I'm sure you get the gist.

Even period costume dramas got a ribbing.

‘I used to be the comic pushing the boundaries, when did it all change? Auntie Beeb has now become the Dirty Old Uncle’, he said, before reminding us of the constant run-ins he had with producers whilst writing his own sketches during his illustrious career.

‘I’m the Cliff Richard of sitcoms’, he joked, as he reminded us about his infamous sketch about how different life would be if men had periods and not women, and how he took on the establishment – which once banned ads about tampons – and won. ‘I did that’, he said with a wry smile – and he did.

Gender was broached as subject too. He admitted, when he was growing up, he knew he was man simply because he had penis.

It was that simple but now gender is merely seen as a concept by some. However, he was quick not to dismiss such an idea and was at pains to suggest it needed some discussion. The idea really seemed to intrigue him.

A whole five-minute routine followed about simple gender tests, like being able to multi-task, thinking you’re the world’s best driver and how to load the dishwasher correctly. The latter really had the crowd in stitches.

As the break approached, the audience had never been so enthused to go and buy a drink. The reason? Following eight years of austerity, the arts have badly suffered, so buying a beer actually helps keep such ‘wonderful venues’, like the Birmingham Town Hall, afloat, Elton reminded us.

He also explained how drinking any alcohol can take two years off your life, according to recent studies, but as it’s only the last two years when you’re old and decrepit, it matters not.

Elton then went into a serious, but still funny, debate about end-of-life care, referencing his father’s battle with Alzheimer’s disease, which brought up the issue of euthanasia.

Unless you’ve been through such an ordeal, it’s hard to comment, but it was clear where Elton’s viewed lay. His father’s final years had clearly been a painful experience.

After the break, he returned with gusto and broached the fight against capitalism or, as Elton explained, how these days we’re fighting for the young people who have been left behind by capitalism.

The Great Smashed Avocado Wars he called it, Baby Boomers versus Millennials.

And then everyone of a certain age was in line for roasting, from artisan brewers to those who served salt an open bowl instead of a shaker.

His point? Why change things that didn't need changing when there so many things going around us that actually . . . do need changing?

Why is there a boom in salted caramel when the world is being run by old, self-important (add expletive here).

He even touched on music and how his children urged him to turn off his rock music, and instead play their rap songs, on the school run.

Elton admires the concept of hip hop, but doesn't get it. However, he can't say that to his kids, because that's exactly what his parents said to him.

'What do you mean there's no difference between glam rock and punk rock?', he would shout at his mom. He understand he's getting older.

There was so much more to go into during his 100mph-whirlwind performance that had the audience laughing throughout.

He did, however, touch on the language of fear used by certain politicians, and how he had been threatened during a recent gig Grimsby.

He connected the two and explained, despite being neither for nor against Brexit, and having toured during the miner's strikes and poll tax riots, he had never known anger like it.

But he ended with a look into a future. The care homes of tomorrow when all the tattooed, pierced residents are dancing with delight to gangsta rap.

It was one of the funniest pieces I'd heard in a long time but at the end of the day he wasn't belittling Millenials, because he has three of his own, it was clear he had a real fear for their future.

But so long as 'we understand community is always bigger than the individual' as he preached to the crowd, we should be okay.

As the audience rose to its feet in applause, Elton simply bowed and thank us all for coming. A true genius. A true icon. Simply one of the best.