Alternative comedy and sketch comedy, consisted of Manchester University and Royal Central School graduates Ade Edmondson, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Dawn French, and Jennifer Saunders, who began to aim their talents at television. As "The Comic Strip Presents", the group made over 40 television films for both Channel 4 and BBC. Ben Elton, who had by then become the Comedy Store's next MC, was invited by Rik Mayall to join him as co-writer of BBC2's TV hit sitcom "The Young Ones". However, it was as MC of Channel 4's new comedy show "Saturday Live" that Elton found fame in his own right.
Ben Downing (writer) Ben Downing (writer) Ben Downing (born April 17, 1967) is an American writer, editor, and teacher. Specializing in nineteenth- and twentieth-century British social life and literature (with a particular emphasis on travel writing), he has written essays, articles, and reviews on figures such as Robert Louis Stevenson, Duff Cooper, Robert Byron, Anthony Powell, Peter Fleming, Wilfred Thesiger, and Patrick Leigh Fermor. His biography of Janet Ross, who for many years was the doyenne of Florence’s Anglo-American colony, was published in 2013 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Downing also writes poetry. His collection "The Calligraphy Shop" appeared in 2003, and he