Cover Image: PSO under the whale skeleton at WA Museum Boola Bardip Hackett Hall. Image by Nushade.

A confluence of comedy and classical cognoscenti crowded WA Museum Boola Bardip Hackett Hall at the weekend for the latest episode of Perth Symphony Orchestra’s WA Stories, featuring comic, author and scriptwriter Ben Elton.

Narrator Sam Longley opened with a paean of praise for Elton, the original Brit-wit motormouth who moved to WA with his Perth-born wife, actor and musician Sophie Gare, a generation ago.

Music and images curated by PSO creative director Fiona Campbell set the scene as Patrick Doyle’s overture for Much Ado About Nothing (1983) paid homage to Elton’s love affair with Shakespeare, and overhead projection rolled out screen credits from The Young Ones to Upstart Crow, and book covers from Stark to the autobiographical What Have I Done?

Elton’s Baby Boomer vintage, shared by much of the audience, showed through his early engagement with musical theatre as Artful Dodger in a school production of Oliver!

That inspired a tribute to Noel Coward – Don’t Put Your Daughter on the Stage, Mrs Worthington – punched out with precision and panache by music director Joe Louis Robinson.

From lofty aspirations Elton’s trajectory descended to 1980s grunge with Our House, from British ska band Madness, intoned by Robinson with Jordan Anthony and Amy Ehlers on backing vocals, as black-and-white snapshots over beer and cigarettes formed a grainy backdrop to a dramatic decade.

Light relief came in Elton’s partnership with Rik Mayall through Manchester Umbrella student theatre and 1982 breakout TV hit The Young Ones, triggering a cover of the eponymous Cliff Richard classic and flashback trauma for a fellow Pommie migrant.

“Have you seen The Young Ones?” someone asked in the day.

“Mate, I lived in that share house!”

Elton also tested his mettle at London’s Comedy Store, an “alternative” scene where many died on stage while the audience sought refuge from the encroaching shadow of Margaret Thatcher.

The Specials’ Ghost Town (1981) channeled the haunting dystopia of racism and riots erupting in Brixton and spreading like wildfire in a searingly surreal pastiche of police and political excess caught on camera, with reggae rhythms to reinforce a sense of unrest.

Little Richard’s historic hit Tutti Frutti complemented Elton’s hectic career path, culminating in Blackadder (1985), the quirky theme tune by Oxford scholar Howard Goodall tolling out in strings and woodwind to sow pity and pathos among pithy gags from the series. 

When Elton and Mayall toured Australia, fate paired them with Sophie Gare’s family band The Jam Tarts, whose Moody Boyfriend (1989) formed an offbeat, lyrical link to an unfolding romance.

Transported by love from London, Elton became a novelist with the WA-set Stark (1989) as Elvis Presley’s evergreen Love Me Tender accompanied wedding photos of the middle-aged megastar now familiar to millions.

Novels and movies flowed from Elton’s pen as the family flourished in the afterglow of the IVF-themed movie Maybe Baby (2000), and PSO frolicked to George Michael’s Faith, its unbeatable bounce bringing the singers to their feet.

From Wham to Queen, Elton’s West End collaboration with Robert De Niro, We Will Rock You (2002) – panned by critics but praised by punters, including Freddie Mercury’s mum – drew a gently anthemic cover of Days of Our Lives matched by lavish video highlights.

With a third child following first-born twins, the family relocated to Fremantle where Elton’s Australian TV debut, Live from Planet Earth (2011), died the death of 1000 tweets.

Family also drove Elton’s Holocaust novel Two Brothers (2013), inspired by his father’s flight to freedom; a philosophical moment poignantly illuminated by Doyle’s Hamnet’s Grave, from All Is True, Elton’s 2018 Shakespeare movie with Kenneth Branagh.

Three Summers (2017), set and shot around WA’s Fairbridge Festival, softened the soundscape to the folkloric lilt of Xavier Rudd’s Follow the Sun (2012), with sonorous solos from flute (Matthew Styles) and violin (Paul Wright).

English fare still nourished Elton in the critical and popular success of Upstart Crow (2016-20), a spoof biopic of Shakespeare starring David Mitchell in tights, drawing echoes of Merrie England in John Playford’s Jameko (1670) with scintillating fiddle and drums (Daniel Susnjar).

Yet the glittering prizes were only half the story, narrator Longley concluded; the wholesome joy of family and friends reflected in The Beatles’ Here Comes the Sun, a sentimental signoff to a slick and beguiling saga.