gridlock 1485-1917 collection blackadder

books:

Blackadder: The Whole Damn Dynasty, 1485-1917

15 reviews
Richard Curtis, Ben Elton, ...

Penguin (Non-Classics), 2000

Damn Funny, Too
I stumbled upon the Black Adder comedy series one night in the 1980s while channel surfing. Something was weird, I thought--there's this sniveling coward, and this even more sniveling sycophant, and then the dogsbody who has dung all over him. Looks interesting. And as I watched, I found it extremely funny, as well. It required a knowledge of history (or Shakespeare, as you see fit), yet wasn't ...

Popcorn

5 reviews
Ben Elton

Black Swan, 2003

SOMEONE TO TAKE THE BLAME
This novel was first published in 1996. Whether there has been any updating of the text beyond one reference to the 21st century in this new paperback edition I simply have no idea. Ben Elton is a caricaturist and satirist. He was scriptwriter for the Blackadder series, he used to do a standup comic routine on television that I thought brilliant, and he has several other novels to his name ...

Inconceivable

27 reviews
Ben Elton

Bantam Doubleday Dell, 2000

HYSTEROSALPINGOGRAMS AND ALL THAT
Ben Elton's style has been got under a bit of control since the heady early days of Stark. He still takes the occasional potshot at incidental targets, but he no longer fires a scattergun in every direction as he did then. As often, he picks a topic that might seem to call for the utmost delicacy and tact and treats it with the utmost frankness and even ribaldry. The topic in question is human ...

Blind Faith
Ben Elton

Transworld Publishers, 2008

As Trafford Sewell struggles to work through the usual crowds of commuters, he is confronted by the intimidating figure of his priest, full of accusatory questions. Why has Trafford not been streaming his every moment of sexual intimacy onto the community website like everybody else? Does he think he's different or special in some way? Does he have something to hide? Imagine a world where everyone knows everything about everybody. Where what a ...

Dead Famous

31 reviews
Ben Elton

Transworld Publishers, 2005

A must read for mystery lovers
Iside a surveilled house, a tv-house like the ones we see on big brother, a murder is comitted. Without is being clear who the killer is. How did the killer manage to be useen in a house with so many cameras? This is one of the questions for the old-fashioned police detective. The book is both thrilling, and funny. I absolutely loved it.

This Other Eden

17 reviews
Ben Elton

Black Swan, 2003

A Piece of Green
Ben Elton is a comedian. He is also a green who cares about the planet. He does not care much about the pretence of actors, actresses and the like. This is why his books are witty sharp observations on life. His heroes and heroines are not rich, brain boxes, they are ordinary like you and me. This is the attractiveness of the books, your cheering yourself on. A meglamaniac has marketed a ...

High Society

8 reviews
Ben Elton

Transworld Publishers, 2002

He's a Clever Bugger
Ben Elton makes me sick. Comedy writer, comedian, playrite, producer and now novelist. As much as I wanted to criticise his writing skills or the plot or the characters, I can't. The book takes a candid look into the murky world of drugs and asks some searching questions of government policies and peoples attitude to one of society's major problem. Well written, well researched, simply fantastic.

Chart Throb

3 reviews
Ben Elton

Transworld Publishers, 2008

Humorous and Insightful.
It's good to see Ben Elton returning again to the literary genre he does best - Comic Satire. Not only is Chart Throb a humorous read, it's an expose into what is commonly referred to as "Reality TV". With biting wit, Elton demonstrates in Chart Throb (a fictitious Pop Idol / X Factor "talent" quest) just how contrived, manipulative and scripted these kinds of shows really are. Not to mention the ...

Past Mortem

11 reviews
Ben Elton

Transworld Publishers, 2005

An American Reviewer Mouths Off
I don't know much about Ben Elton, but I've read a few of his books before, including the last few detective novels. The novel about the BIG BROTHER house I've reviewed for Amazon, and this one is almost as good as the last. Technically speaking the previous book DEAD FAMOUS took more chances, was more daring in conception and in execution. And this one has, for some reason, a fisting scene in ...

The First Casualty

2 reviews
Ben Elton

Transworld Publishers, 2006

Alternate political characters enhance rather than overwhelm WW1 crime story
This book deserves closer analysis than my hazy recollections of a few months ago, but life being what it is this will have to do. Elton creates perhaps the least sympathetic character possible as his war hero: a conscientious objector. I don't know that this book could have even been published closer to the time of its WW1 setting (well, I'm sure it couldn't have given some of the sexual ...

Blackadder II (BBC Radio Collection)
Richard Curtis, Ben Elton

BBC Audiobooks Ltd, 2002

Ben Elton Plays: 1

1 review
Ben Elton

A&C Black, 2000

Pass the Popcorn
Ben Elton is perhaps more famous for his work on the BlackAdder series and his spot on saturday Night Live. Yet these plays are surely far the superior. Combining Gasping, Silly Cow, and Popcorn (my favourite) into one book, these plays have the typical Elton satyrical streak along with some more adult humour that most definately would not make it to TV. Forget Baldrik, give me Scout and her ...

Gasping (Acting Edition)
Ben Elton

Samuel French, 1997

The First Casualty

8 reviews
Ben Elton

Transworld Publishers, 2005

Death, war and murder
This is a murder mystery in which the central character (a London police inspector) is sent to prison for his refusal to participate in what he sees as an immoral war. In order to save his own life he agrees to investigate the murder of a politically connected war hero-poet as a generation British, French and German men is being killed on the battlefields of Europe. The book is not a great ...

"Blackadder"

2 reviews
Richard Curtis, Ben Elton, ...

Michael Joseph Ltd, 1998

Another edition of the dynasty...
The authors Richard Curtis and Ben Elton are well known to BBC audiences for their comedic masterwork, having been severally and individually part of the Vicar of Dibley, Mr. Bean, The Young Ones, The Man from Auntie. Rowan Atkinson, the lead actor in this series, also collaborated as writer and actor in other features such as Mr. Bean and the Thin Blue Line. John Lloyd was the producer who ...

Gridlock

11 reviews
Ben Elton

Little, Brown, 1991

JAMS BOND
This novel is art imitating life to about the extent that a James Bond film does that. It's for Ben Elton's fans, of whom I happen to be one. It picks up the theme of degradation of our environment that he had attacked wholesale in his previous novel Stark, focuses this time on the specific threats from motor transport, and features once again heroic misfits battling with cartoon ogres and ...

Stark

20 reviews
Ben Elton

Warner Books, 1989

SATIRE SLAPSTICK AND DOOMSDAY
Ben Elton is probably best known as scriptwriter for the Blackadder series, and that will give you a fair idea of both his talent and his way of thinking. To get the most out of Stark it probably helps to have followed the stand-up comic series he used to do on the BBC. That was brilliant and no two ways about it, provided you didn't find some of the topics embarrassing, which, in the absence of ...

Blast from the Past

24 reviews
Ben Elton

Delta, 2000

BEDROOM OPERA
Picture the scene - the bedroom of a down-at-heel apartment where two lovers from 16 years ago are unexpectedly reunited. As they clasp each other with hesitant longing the woman utters the cobwebby old line `Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just pleased to see me?', and the man replies `It's a gun in my pocket'. Any novel with that piece of dialogue has to have something going for it. ...

Ben Elton Omnibus
Ben Elton

Time Warner Paperbacks, 2000

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