Ben Elton Ben Elton Benjamin Charles Elton (born 3 May 1959) is an English comedian, author, playwright, actor and director. He was a part of London's alternative comedy movement of the 1980s and became a writer on series such as "The Young Ones" and "Blackadder", as well as continuing as a stand-up comedian on stage and television. His style in the 1980s was left-wing political satire. Since then he has published 15 novels and written the musicals "We Will Rock You" (2002) and "Love Never Dies" (2010), the sequel to "The Phantom of the Opera". His novels cover the dystopian, comedy, and
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