Mark Steel

Local colour takes Mark Steel's comedy out of routine

Comedian Mark Steel certainly enjoys a challenge - he's performing a different gig at every location on his tour. As he swots up on material for Cardiff, he shares some local anecdotes with Dave Freak.

News Quiz: Why will there be no end of the peer show?

It's Friday, so here's a little treat from tonight's News Quiz, featuring Sue Perkins, Mark Steel, Jeremy Hardy and Hugo Rifkind.

Mark Steel's in Town- the review

On Friday night popular TV and radio comedian Mark Steel performed to a packed house in the New Phoenix Cinema. The performance was recorded as the last show in his BBC Radio 4 series 'Mark Steel's in Town' which will be broadcast on 12th May at 6.30pm.

Mark Steel's in Town drops into Dumfries and Kirkwall

For Mark Steel's in Town, the comic drops into six UK locations to discover what makes them and their inhabitants peculiarly unique.

Stand-up almost always fails on radio, simply because at some point during the transfer between stage and studio, a keen comedy producer decides that there should be a concept. Why not have the comedian pretend to be an agony aunt? Or get the audience to shout out news topics? Or - and this is truly shuddersome - how about taking a few jokes and turning them into sketches?

Mark Steel's in Town has the dreaded concept: veteran comic Mark Steel turns up at a nondescript UK municipality, spends time there and creates a bespoke stand-up show. But this concept works because we hear none of the research, nothing of Mark chatting to locals, hanging out in local libraries and pubs. We just get a straightforward stand-up show with a receptive audience. It's great.

On Wednesday, in the first of his new series, Steel took us to Dartford in Kent. The resulting very funny half-hour took in gypsy tart, the pedants' revolt and - I was very impressed by this - an email from Mick Jagger, on holiday in Mustique, comparing the joys of his vacation location to the delights of Dartford, where he was born. Neither snotty nor sycophantic, Steel tied it all together with generous humour. Next week he visits my home town of Wilmslow. I am on tenterhooks (most uncomfortable, I must say).

Radio Review: Mark Steel's in Town

A little local knowledge helps Mark Steel dish the dirt on Dartford, writes Elisabeth Mahoney.

Mark Steel in "The Knightsbridge of the north"

Mark Steel was in town last night to perform his stand up comedy show all about Wilmslow and Alderley Edge.



Here's a tinsel-brandishing variety show for the rationally minded. Recorded at the Hammersmith Apollo in London before Christmas - or should that be Yule? - it features a motley collection of performers. Atheist-in-chief Richard Dawkins leads the cast which includes physicist Brian Cox, Ben 'Bad Science' Goldacre, writer Simon Singh, musician Robyn Hitchcock and comics Richard Herring, Mark Steel, Shappi Khorsandi, Barry Cryer and Ronnie Golden.

A new series and rabbits and Chas 'n' Dave

A few weeks ago I began the awkward business of starting work on a second series.