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Mark Steel

Date of birth: 30-11-1960

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: En Ville

Comic to perform his In Town shows en Francais

Mark Steel is to perform a version of his In Town show in French.

The comic and columnist will address the often fraught relationship between Britain and France at Komedia Brighton on January 23 and the Museum of Comedy, London, on January 28.

He explained: ‘Over the last ten years I’ve been to dozens of towns, for the Radio 4 show Mark Steel’s in Town. In a way, doing a show about the crazy ways of Orkney or Basingstoke, in front of people who live there, is performing in another language. The people in those places are always funny, always heartening. So the next stage is to do a show in which the words are different to the ones I’m familiar with as well.

‘In Mark Steel En Ville I will talk about France and the French, and Britain and the British. Because they’re funny. And I’ll have a whole new way of yelling, which is a wonderful incentive. If people laugh, this will complete the next stage of my plan to dominate the world.

In 2003, he wrote the book Vive La Revolution: A Stand-Up History of the French Revolution, which he later turned into a stand-up show and Radio 4 series. He has also given comedy lectures on Napoleon Bonaparte and Descartes for Radio 4.

Steel grew up in Kent believing his birth father to be French, but later found that wasn’t the true story, as he detailed in the acclaimed stand-up show Who Do I Think I Am?

Published: 2 Nov 2021