Mark Steel's in Wigan

From his Radio 4 show

More Mark Steel videos

Mark Steel has performed as a stand-up since 1983. For Radio 4, he has written and performed four series of both The Mark Steel Solution and The Mark Steel Lecture, which transferred to BBC4.

Mark has also hosted the BBC Radio 5 sports programme Extra Time, produced a weekly column for The Guardian and now does so for The Independent.

Mark Steel's In Town
Live Review
Bath Komedia

Mark Steel has made a virtue of the road comedian’s life. Rather than seeing his tour as a dreary series of identikit chain hotels interspersed with Ginsters pasties, he has set out to really get to know the towns he plays.

This curiosity to seek out unlikely destinations – Handsworth, Gateshead, Basingstoke, Wigan – to determine what makes them special has served him well with a fourth radio series based on this idea currently in production.

Tonight, though, he’s lucked out, playing the genuine tourist site of Bath, with its Roman spa, Georgian architecture and – most excitingly for the audience in the Komedia – a forthcoming Waitrose.

Steel’s visibly disappointed at the enthusiasm the opening of a supermarket engenders, especially as this show is a celebration of the quirky things that give towns a sense of identity in a nation of increasingly homogenised High Streets, where the same corporate names are just rearranged in a different order.

This is about as political as the renowned Leftie gets. Rather than banging a socialist drum, he more subtly promotes the idea of community that lies behind his ideology, and so appeals for the broader Middle England crowd you get when you’re a star of Radio 4 and columnist with The Independent.

A good chunk of the first half reflects that audience’s concerns back at them. Steel is surprised to find himself over 50 – and suddenly lumped by marketing men into an amorphous ’50-plus’ demographic of tea-dancing grave-dodgers – and struggling with a grumpy, uncommunicative, living-the-cliche, 16-year-old son.

Steel fears he used to rant because he was right; but now rants simply because he’s old, getting furious at the bad manners of internet trolls, the baffling ritual of ordering at Subway, the frustrations of call centres or the advances of technology. There’s nothing too original about the causes of his ire, but he vents it in magnificent displays of splenetic rage, which he uses only sparingly... more’s the pity, as they really hit home when he unleashes them.

He tops each half with a few bits of information and observations he’s gleaned about Bath, scoring points with the locals for having spent some time getting to know the place (though mistakenly thinking it has a cathedral causes audible disgruntlement). In the gazetteer of obscure information that he’s surely compiling about the UK, the fact that Haile Selassie lived here in the Thirties must top the Bath entry.

This audience is generally understated when it comes to engaging him with information about the town – but at least they understand the premise. Steel reveals that in Winchester a man approached him after the show to tell him: ‘Lucky you were here, considering how much material you’ve got on Winchester.’

Truth be told, Steel’s only does a Wikipedia-level superficial job on Bath - though it’s clearly more than most comics do – and in the second half he takes us around the rest of the country in appreciation of the quirks that give character. Even those living somewhere as apparently featureless as Walsall in the West Midlands find something to make its own – an unspectacular concrete hippopotamus, as it happens. Steel’s soulless home town of Swanley in Kent proves a tougher challenge, but even so he finds glimmers of idiosyncrasy.

Such facts are interesting, primarily, but presented with a side-order of funny as Steel sneaks some wry one-liners into his passionate monologue. However, this is not an over-polished show; but rather a feelgood rallying cry celebrating what makes Britain great – even when it’s a bit shit. Especially when it's a bit shit.

Skip to page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Mark Steel; one of life's gems. Nuff said.

Mhara Costello, January 2013

I think Ted Democrat misses the point, though I suspect, he's a staffer at the Conservative Party Central Office. By the way, Ted, Mark Steel is no longer a Trotskyite. He left the SWP years ago. Try keeping up. I find Mark refereshingly funny in an age when most comedians can't be arsed to do anything other than tepid observations of things that they saw on the way to the supermarket.

Riera, May 2010

Trotsky massacred his own men at Kronstadt. He was involved in many other Bolshevik mass slaughters. Frankly, he was a psycho. Why the BBC - in promoting Mark Steel - say some 20th century psychos are unacceptable (Mussolini, Hitler) whereas others (Trotsky) are cool, baffles me. The BBC are a moral joke and should be dismantled. The guy at the top of BBC Trust (Michael Lyons) charged with making these moral calls last year took expenses of £68,500. Probably had Steely round to discuss Kronstadt over lobster...

Russian Justice, February 2010

Did the previous reviewer click the wrong button in the Mail-Online unintentionally funny knee-jerk comments section, perhaps? If Mr Democrat can bring himself to cast aside his Enid Blyton Guide To Soviet History, I highly recommend Mark Steel's 'Reasons To Be Cheerful', which (giving due credit to Tony Cliff) corrects this laughably (!) erroneous view of Trotsky (ever heard of a guy called Stalin, Ted?), with Steel's typical mix of wit, political incisiveness and auto-didactic erudition.rnrnNote to Andy (July, 2006): Mark Steel was doing reasonably priced incisive political comedy several years before you and your proto-emo mates handed over six months’ pocket money to hear Rob Newman doing knob gags in Wembley Arena.

Steve Ellis, February 2009

As an open and avowed Trotskyite, he supports the forced Collectivisation which resulted in up to 20 million deaths in the Soviet Union. Were he a Nazi apologist supporting the deaths of 6 million in the Holocaust, he would have no place within the BBC. Surely the BBC should sack this apologist for mass murder?

Ted Democrat, February 2009

Watched Mark's show at the Brewhouse in Taunton tonight and thought it was fantastic. Mark strays somewhat from the usual topics of modern comedy with his show based around the French Revolution but it works brilliantly. He is able to bring the historical period alive in a way which is laugh out loud funny whilst not in any way excluding the less academic. If history at school were taught this way I might have turned up once in a while! Mark also puts in the homework on his venue, introducing a local flavor to his set. He also interjects relevant modern tales and topical threads in to his historical dialogue - drawing funny comparisons between history and today and using his vast range of excellent regional accents to add even greater comedy effect. A brilliant night and the best way I can think of to spend 14 quid!

Rebecca, December 2007

I saw Mark in Huddersfield on 11th October 2007, and he was truly brilliant. I love comedy and see as much of it as I can, but he was, genuinely, the funniest comedian I have ever seen live. I am not saying that there aren't better comedians on the circuit, but because of a lively audience, and that fact that he was 20 minutes late, the French Revolution' theme was completely discarded and it ended up being over three hours of him bantering with the audience. Truly amazing, very intelligent and incredibly funny.

Ricardio, October 2007

Not "Reasons to be Cheerful" but reasons for living. You restore my faith in human nature. Today's Independent article shows that there are people concerned with another view on life. Hurray. I may be 70 odd but I'm with him on this.

B R Meadows, July 2007

Skip to page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4