Mark Steel: I have cancer
- Mark Steel has revealed that he has throat cancer and will be taking a six month break from performing
- However, he reassured listeners to his podcast that the cancer hasn't spread beyond his neck and that his prognosis is good
- "It feels like there's a leopard in my house and the leopard is locked securely away in a room. I've contacted the leopard authorities and they have assured me that they're used to dealing with leopards like this and it's fairly routine, they have a plan"
Mark Steel has revealed he has throat cancer and will be taking six months off from performing.
The comic shared his diagnosis on his What The F*** Is Going On? podcast today, days before he is due to have an operation to confirm the location of the cancer in his neck.
The cancer has not spread to his lungs, with a scan showing "that there is no cancer in me outside of the neck and throat area, so there should be no reason why a combination of treatments won't cure it all" he said.
"My generation was brought up to think that cancer was as final as being beheaded. But that's no longer true ... Even the consultant, when I said 'is it treatable?', he said 'all cancers are treatable.'"
Steel identified a lump in his throat while shaving. And in the podcast, he recalls a difficult wait for his test results as his biopsy was initially lost in transit by the NHS.
Two of Steel's close friends, the comedians Linda Smith and Jeremy Hardy, died of cancer. And he reflects on Hardy's passing in his current An Evening And A Little Bit Of A Morning With Mark Steel tour, the circumstances of which he recalled on the podcast.
Called by an obituary writer for the Times, who asked if the famously socialist Hardy was political and a keen follower of sport, he said that he was "sort of a bit befuddled and answered properly."
Steel, who has been known to stretch the truth in interviews about his own career, then realised: "Oh, what an opportunity! I should have said: 'Yes, yes he was political, he was chair of the East Surrey Conservative Association.
"'And he played rugby league to a semi-professional standard'. And it would have been in the Times, which would have been perfect.
"So I was thinking, at this moment, I'm unlucky but compared to [Hardy and Smith] then I'm lucky. What is luck? We're lucky we're here in the first place. All these millions of thoughts all sort of ricochet around your mind and you start thinking can my son and my daughter carry on living in the house if I die or does that involve filling in loads of forms? I've got to fucking do that on top of everything else."
He added: "And of course, when it comes to luck, my situation might have been fatal, just as measles would have been 100 years ago ... And now, it probably won't be unless something goes very wrong. Not by chance, but because physicians and doctors and scientists have dedicated themselves to blasting away these cellular mutations we call cancers.
"And because nurses and cleaners and caterers have run the hospitals and having arrived from all over the world, often with a load of abuse thrown out and for doing so, because campaigners and writers and trade unionists created a health service and defended it from all the people who want to ruin it.
"I'm trying to find a way of saying this without seeming like a sickly cliché. There is nothing like cancer, I would recommend it to feel the depth of the warmth around you. Elliot [Steel, his son and fellow stand-up] and my daughter and my partner and so many friends who've taken me to appointments and listened to the complaints, they've lived all the moments, they've taken the piss and told me, they can't wait for my voice to not work for a few months, they get a rest from it, and talks about cricket. Utterly, utterly, utterly magnificent."
Summarising, he evoked the metaphor of a leopard for his prognosis.
"It feels like there's a leopard in my house and the leopard is locked securely away in a room. I've contacted the leopard authorities and they have assured me that they're used to dealing with leopards like this and it's fairly routine, they have a plan for removing the leopard, though it will take a while. So it's awkward, but they will deal with it. And that's fine."
Steel also confirmed that there will be at least one more episode of his podcast coming this week, featuring Angela Barnes and Elliot and that he would like to continue recording it, but if he has to take a break then "c'est la vie".
He was due to perform at Norwich Playhouse tomorrow night but his publicist has confirmed to British Comedy Guide that the tour is now postponed until further notice.