What Have I Done?: My Autobiography

by Ben Elton

Read brilliantly by the author, Ben Elton. From The Young Ones and Blackadder theme music to snippets of his stand-up comedy shows, this audiobook includes bonus audio recordings showcasing special moments throughout Ben's incredible career.


‘What Have I Done? snaps, crackles and pops with wit, bravado and glorious Ben-ness. A triumph’ – Stephen Fry

‘A big life chronicled by truly the Upstart Crow of our generation’ – Dawn French

Ben Elton has done everything and worked with everybody. Now, in this frank, forthright, and hugely entertaining book, he tells the whole story.

Discover the truth behind iconic hits like The Young Ones, Blackadder, and We Will Rock You. Relive the pioneering stand-up of Saturday Live that birthed a comedy revolution. From being the BBC’s youngest-ever sitcom writer to his most recent, critically acclaimed stand-up tour, Ben reveals unique insights into his groundbreaking work.

He talks honestly about his relationships with brilliant friends, inspiring contemporaries, and occasional foes. His life off-screen has been just as challenging and funny as it has been on, and he unpacks it all with wit, insight, and of course, a ‘little bit of politics’.

For decades, Ben’s been making people laugh, think, and getting on plenty of wicks - these are the uncensored stories.

‘Funny and fascinating, it’s a story of triumph and disaster and is the closest you’ll get to understanding where great comedy comes from’ – David Mitchell

'Bloody marvellous' – Jo Brand

Genres: Autobiography, Comedy, Biography

Audible Audio

Published October 9, 2025

About the author

Ben Elton was born on 3 May 1959, in Catford, South London. The youngest of four, he went to Godalming Grammar school, joined amateur dramatic societies and wrote his first play at 15. He wanted to be a stagehand at the local theatre, but instead did A-Level Theatre Studies and studied drama at Manchester University in 1977.

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.

Reviews

[Moravian1297 · Rating 5 out of 5]

First things first, I'd like to state that I absolutely LOVE Ben Elton. There, I've said it and now my cards have been firmly laid on the table. I'm something of a Benny Elton fanboi, so get over it! Granted, I'm not a fan of his entire oeuvre, but given its scope and vastness, that's hardly surprising. I do however, love and revere certain parts of it, namely, his ’anti-sitcom’ sitcom, 'The Young Ones', his historical sitcom, ’Blackadder' (along with ’I’m Alan Partridge’ and ’Father Ted’ in my top three British comedy shows of all time), and with the exception of Ben's novels, 'Blast From the Past' and 'Inconceivable', I've thoroughly enjoyed his books, with 'Past Mortem', 'The First Casualty' and 'Two Brothers' being particular highlights. In fact, I'd put 'Two Brothers' into my top five all time greatest novels. And last but certainly by no means least, his ground-breaking, highly influential stand up routines. In 2019 I actually managed to achieve a bucket list ambition, which I thought had most definitely past me by, and caught Ben live at Eden Court, Inverness on his reunion stand up tour, and it was brilliant. Ben certainly didn't disappoint, the comic maestro was extremely funny and had lost none of his stage presence and machine gun rattle wit. Generally these days, with the exception of perhaps Mark Thomas, I can safely say that I do not like ANY stand up comedians very much, and have simply just stopped watching them, or their contrived panel shows, as they just aren't, well….. in simple terms….. funny! So it truly is amazing for Ben to buck that trend, and blow me away! Contemporary so called stand up comedians could most definitely do themselves a favour and watch the master at work, 'Mr Ben Elton, ladies and gentlemen, ooh! A little bit of politics!', and see how it's done properly. And I do find it quite ironic that two of the least funny men on the planet, Stewart Lee and Mark Steel seem to have made their entire living by doing nothing other than slagging off Ben Elton! Steel in particular seems pretty much obsessed by the talented comic, playwright and novelist, which is a pity, because his Benny Elton obsession aside, his heart and his politics seem to be in the right place. I once had the misfortune to see Mark Steel on the panel show 'Have I Got News For You' (which as I've said, I no longer watch, as it just became a parody of itself, and I no longer found it very funny), and he was very much an unamusing and seemingly very bitter one trick pony, in that ALL he said on the show was quite literally, "Ben Elton is sh*t! Ben Elton is sh*t! Ben Elton is sh*t! Ben Elton is sh*t! Etc, etc...... " Un-f*cking-believable, haha!

I've never actually understood all the hate that's heaped upon Mr Elton. It's vicious, witless and completely unwarranted. It's often been levelled at him, that he's a sell out, a sell out? Who or what exactly is he selling out? What does that even mean? Unfathomable nonsense, expounded I think by various elements of petty jealousy, right wing zeal, left wing self righteousness (Ben is one hundred percent correct when he states in the book, that the left like nothing better than having a go and hating on other left wing factions that they've found some miniscule point of order to disagree on! The ’Socialist Schism Party’ here by ratifies their utter contempt for the ’Red Semantics Front’! Monty Python sum this up succinctly in their hilarious ’Splitter’ scene in ’The Life of Brian’), general middle class snobbery and arrogance, and good (bad) old fashioned anti-Semitism. Where it rears it’s ugly head just like anti-Irish/Catholic bigotry in Scotland, which is so ingrained into society, that people don’t even realize they’re doing it, and actually get quite unjustifiably outraged at the mere suggestion of it! ’Unconscious bias’, as I think it’s termed today.
If Ben had been quite literally ANYBODY else, with his body of work and achievements behind him, he would most definitely be a 'National Treasure' by this point, or indeed, many, many years ago.
He most certainly is for me, but mind you, would he really want that label? Because most 'National Treasures' these days turn out to be either, drug cheats, tax dodgers, nonces or some other form of egregious sexual predators!

Right, to the book, haha! I thoroughly enjoyed it and was hooked from the first couple of sub-chapters. It was highly entertaining and eminently interesting, full of Ben's joyous humour, including a sprinkling of ’knob’ gags, and his effervescent lust for life. I did feel however, that the hilarious author seemed to lose enthusiasm for the book toward the end. Where, for the first two thirds of the autobiography, it was highly detailed and pretty expansive, but from the final third, about the time of entering into the twenty first century, it really started to wane, and I found Ben was rushing somewhat and just seemed to be skipping through his latter years. This was something of a disappointment, as I'd been getting quite a lot from the detailed stories and explanations that the author was espousing at the start and middle of the book.
A prime example being, when he mentions one of my favourite Ben Elton novels, 'Past Mortem', he literally just says, "Then I wrote 'Past Mortem'....." That was it! Wail! Go on Ben, tell us what inspired it?! Tell us how it came to pass?! There had been a sub-chapter on 'don't boast to your butcher', which quite literally meant that, don't boast about things you haven't already done to your butcher, because sometimes, they don't come off, and they (the butcher) then proceed to take the piss! Now, for as ever so slightly amusing as that anecdote was, I'd have MUCH preferred an explanation into the inspiration behind 'Past Mortem', than a story about his blimmin’ butcher, or indeed, the effort that went into building a wooden fort called 'The Structure' in his back blimmin’ garden.

I really enjoyed learning about things like, how TV 'morality upholder', Mary Whitehouse (an all powerful and highly ignorant busybody of the 70's and 80's, and someone whom Billy Connolly says is Cockney rhyming slang for toilet!) had liked Ben's 1996 novel 'Popcorn', as she thought it attacked screen violence, haha.
But in the next breath, I was saddened to learn that a screen adaptation, with none other than Antipodean acting legend, Russell Crowe, of the brilliant WWI set thriller, 'The First Casualty' (a book I read, then joyously read again out loud to my then girlfriend, at her request I might add!), had never made it out of the basement, and ruefully ended up in what Ben calls his 'broken crockery' of failed projects, that for whatever reason, never quite make it. But a movie or TV drama of ’The First Casualty’ would have been fan-bloody-tastic, as it really is a wonderfully written tale, and as General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett, VC, KCB, DSO would put it, ”Hey, ho you can’t have everything I suppose.”

I simply lapped up the stories Ben told about the legend that is Rik Mayall. One particular stand out Rik anecdote, was when Rik had read the reviews of Ben's latest sitcom at the time, 2014's 'The Wright Way' (I'd never even heard of that one!), all of which were extremely bad (it actually reminded me of the reviews dished out to the hapless Andy Millman and his sitcom ’When The Whistle Blows’ in ’Extras’). In fact Ben calls that his 'nadir' of sitcom script writing. Anyway, Rik, after tortuously reading the reviews out loud to the crestfallen author (whom had deliberately NOT read them!), asks "Do you want me to kill the c*nts?" Haha! And to paraphrase Jez from ’Peep Show’ “That’s just sooo Rik” (David Mitchell would go on to star as William Shakespeare in Ben’s 2016 sitcom ’Upstart Crow’)
I was actually surprised at just how much of Ben's work, that I hadn't previously heard of before! The afore mentioned 'The Wright Way' ( described by the critics as 'the worst comedy ever written'! It would have certainly had to go some way to beat 'Two Pints of Lager....'), the Ardal O'Hanlon sitcom 'Blessed', the 2007 Ch4 late night variety show with Alexa Chung (whom I've also never heard of haha), 'Get a Grip', thankfully I’d also never heard of the Rod Stewart musical 'Tonight's the Night' (although Rod is a Celtic fan, I wholeheartedly endorse the Green Brigade banner at Celtic Park, 'Tories Not Welcome, F*ck Off Rod!', haha!), which would have negated any possibility of me having had watched, or indeed, listened to it lol (however, I’m not arrogant enough to think that just because ‘I’ don’t like Rod Stewart, that nobody else should like him, or that because Rod is a high profile ‘celebrity Tory’, the author of his musical is a ’sell out’!) and of course, the odd play here and there (I do own a copy of a book with three of Ben’s plays, ’Gasping’, ‘Silly Cow’ and ‘Popcorn’. Which I had bought because I thought I could read them like a novel, but obviously, you can’t, doough!).

I did have a couple of slight criticisms however, near the end of the book, Ben says ’he always puts 100% into what he does’, but unfortunately he'd already said earlier in the biography, that he tends to 'spread himself too thinly' by taking on too much work at the same time, resulting in him not being able to give it his everything! Although this does come across as contradictory, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and imagine, that even when he was 'thinly spread', he still attempted to do it, with maximum effort.
He talks in the book about his publisher's lawyers insisting he change the George Galloway based character in his 2006, 'X Factor' inspired novel 'Chart Throb', into Prince Charles (as he was known at the time), just in case Galloway sued. But I utterly cringed, when he also stated, that unlike the Scottish firebrand ex MP, Prince Charles didn't deserve to be lampooned or wickedly satarised! Whaaaat?!! If EVER someone DID deserve to be satarised, it's that twat! Even if only for his and his families parasitical sponging off the State, and that's before you even start asking questions, on just why the Royal Family, King Charles and the late Prince Philip in particular, were so friendly and cosy with 'Mr Jim'll Fix It' himself!
But in the grand scheme of things, those criticisms were pretty minor all told.

So, all in all, Ben Elton's autobiography was excellent, and coincidentally, I had been wondering what he'd been up to since 2019's tour and novel, 'Identity Crisis' (of which I'm a proud owner of a signed copy, woohoo!). But the autobiography, now makes that question pretty self evident, haha (I had been hoping that he’d been working on a new novel, but the autobiography will do just fine!).
Ben's personality bubbles out from the pages of the book, with not a single trace of bitterness, which, in my opinion, he'd have been more than justified in doing, but as Ben shows us in this biography, by actually praising those whom have so unjustifiablely maligned and denigrated him, life's just too short to waste it on hate. With the exception of perhaps Alexei Sayle (whom has since apologised to Ben for his past poor behaviour), Ben 'Farty Spice' Elton has more talent in his farts, than those whom have bizarrely made careers out of having a go at him, so hopefully Ben has finally said to them, 'F*ck off, I'm Ben Elton! Goodnight!'

I'll finish with Ben's favourite line from his entire oeuvre, it's from his sitcom 'The Thin Blue Line' and police detective Grim is telling Rowan Atkinson’s police character that if he makes a mistake, it's Grim that will get the blame, and he says, "You're cock up, my arse! Hahahaha!! Fantastic! I do LOVE a ’dooble’……

……. the hilarious Harry Enfield sketch ’Benny Elton’ which Ben says in the book, was as much fun to make, as it is to watch haha!

https://youtu.be/0jm8zlLdk7w?si=otvX4...