 and a very thoughtful man away from the stage. Coward's way out But jeez, once they shoved him back in that spangly suit, a self-righteous hell was unleashed from the very opening segment when he revealed his preferred pronouns (p**s and off) and then delivered a lecture about the nature of comedy. 'The job of satire is to speak truth to power,' Ben explained, with a sly conspiratorial smile. 'So if you want me to slag off Labour all you have to do is vote them into power and I'll be happy to have a pop at them.' A nasty catch I'd sensed was coming, but one that didn't begin to explain why significantly powerful left-of-centre figures, like Sadiq Khan and Mick Lynch, were always off limits, let alone how Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden went unmocked for the duration of FNL. These new, unwritten an){kind=link}
CHANNEL 4’s 40th anniversary revival of Friday Night Live was the birthday party that turned into a funeral.
A night filled by foul-mouthed abuse, one act who played the keyboard with their dong and sermons from MC Ben Elton, who brought the occasion to a close with the warning: “Tweet what you like but do NOT quote me or any of the acts out of context.”
And on that cheery note, he bid viewers farewell with the suggestion: “Hasn’t it been a lovely night?”
Well, no, seeing as you ask, Ben. It hasn’t.
By turns, I felt unwelcome, bored, queasy but mostly just sad that Channel 4 tarnished my happy memories of a buccaneering show that won all the significant political battles it fought in the 1980s and so, by rights, should have returned with an air of self-mockery and the odd laugh or two.