Ben Elton at Duke of York's Theatre review: scorchingly topical and bracingly funny With impeccable comic timing Ben Elton's West End run opened on the day that Sir Keir Starmer announced that he was going to unleash AI to boost UK growth.
This leads into one of the strongest set-pieces of the first half, a powerhouse portrait of a final dinner with an elderly relative, where there is a culture clash with a tattoo'd blue-haired hipster waiter and everyone gets served fashionable sharing plates which nobody likes.
Yes, kids today might have more metal in their faces than the average junkyard, but it's Elton who has to wear a sleep apnoea mask that makes him resemble a cross between Hannibal Lecter and Dumbo.
The veteran stand-up's show Authentic Stupidity, which takes Artificial Intelligence as its starting point, is suddenly scorchingly topical as well as bracingly funny.
If the co-writer of classic sitcom The Young Ones had his way assisted dying pills would be available in Tesco, giving a whole new meaning to the phrase "supermarket checkout".
