Threat to free speech ‘no laughing matter’

Ben Elton fears we’re entering a new dark age where truth, reason and logic are under threat. What Twitter has done to public debate is terrifying.

‘Comedy should be uplifting, informative and empowering,’ says British comedian Ben Elton, at the City Recital Hall in Sydney. Picture: Britta Campion

Ben Elton, the comedian who took on the British ­establishment in the 1980s and co-wrote hit comedies such as The Young Ones and Blackadder, fears we are entering a new dark age where truth, reason and logic are under threat.

“The Enlightenment, when suddenly the light of reason shone through humanity’s natural predilection towards suspicion, superstition and bigotry, gave us democratic government, the rule of law and the notion that you had to support your position with ­empirical evidence,” he said.

“In the last 15 years, in my opinion almost entirely because of the internet, it is all in play again and people are choosing their own truth, their own facts, their own science, their own evidence and finding massive communities for this.”

Citing the election of Donald Trump, Russian interference in politics, the rise of white supremacy energised by the dark web and conspiracies about COVID-19 vaccines, Elton said the internet posed an existential danger. “This is much more f..king serious than whether a bunch of comics are making jokes that have outraged a student union in Leicester,” he said.

“What Twitter has done to public debate is terrifying and possibly terminal. There is more to discuss in terms of the cancel culture than a bunch of millen­nials feeling rightly sensitive about what they see as important identity issues.”

Elton, 61, who is touring Australia for the first time in 15 years, rejected the suggestion that cancel culture or political correctness had put boundaries on comedy. “The core of comedy is truth,” he said. No issue is off-limits but ­humour based on prejudice or ­ignorance must be called out.

British comedian Ben Elton,at City Recital Hall in Sydney. Picture: Britta Campion

“There was a comic trope in Britain in the 1960s that (said) all black people were work-shy and Irish people were stupid,” he said.

“Isolating certain groups at the expense of others is not only easy comedy but it is dishonest comedy, which makes it bad comedy.

“It was a kind of collective bullying and I’m glad if that is being called out more now. The ability to see the funny side is one of the redeeming factors of being human and no issue is ­beyond the scope of comedy, ­absolutely none.

“In fact, the more serious, the more important, the more complex and the more challenging the subject matter, the more deserving of comedy it is.

“But comedy should be up­lifting, informative and empowering,” he said.

In his show, Elton urged people to be understanding and accepting of social change, particularly around gender and identity, even though it can be confusing and confronting, and argued that social media often poisons rational public debate about such complex issues by heightening anxiety.

“While many of the subjects which are provoking this outrage are very legitimate, there is also undoubtedly a level of banality on Twitter which makes for a very poor level of debate or conversation, and there’s unquestionably been pile-ons and bullying, which are unedifying, unhelpful and deeply cruel,” he said.

Elton who has written ­acclaimed novels, plays, movies and musicals, has written the script for a movie about the Bee Gees. It will be directed by Kenneth Branagh and produced by Graham King.

Ben Elton is at Melbourne’s Hamer Hall on Monday , Canberra on Tuesday, Bendigo on Wednesday and Perth next Monday.