Mark Steel's In Town

Mark Steel upsets the chakras with Glastonbury show

Mark Steel has been accused being abusive towards religious beliefs, after he mocked the New Age followers who live in Glastonbury. A complaint about an episode of Mark Steel's In Town broadcast on Radio 4 in January escalated all the way up to the Editorial Standards Committee of the BBC Trust - which has now cleared him of being offensive.

Radio Times review

The last stop on Mark Steel's tour of towns in need of an affectionate ribbing is Huddersfield, and he concludes that it's just what you'd expect a town in the middle of Yorkshire to be.

But before he reaches that conclusion there's the locals' dour pessimism to explore, the extraordinary crimes that take place there, the legacy of Luddism, which was born in the town, the unique construction of the indoor market, the cultural significance of brass bands, rugby league - and, of course, the exploits of three elderly men in Last of the Summer Wine.

Throughout the series, Steel has displayed an aptitude for accents and he ends on a high, delivering a speech in French - with a Yorkshire accent. His feeble knowledge of Last of the Summer Wine is brutally exposed when talking to the owner of Sid's Cafe in Holmfirth, but he's stronger on the Luddism, explaining why still buying CDs instead of downloading music does not make you a Luddite - though if I were CEO of iTunes I'd steer clear of anyone calling themselves one. Steel describes precisely why in one of his trademark wry twists on historical fact.

Radio Times review

Mark Steel pitches up in Birkenhead and instantly gets the home crowd on side with a few jibes about the Mersey Tunnel toll and the town's more famous neighbour across the water. But the residents of the town on the Wirral are easy in their ability to laugh at Birkenhead's shortcomings. Steel's incredulous description of a night out in the town centre has them howling.

The comic is in rare form, displaying his mastery of accents with everything from Birkenhead to American redneck, and delighting in the quirky, oppositional nature of the town, from the fans of Tranmere Rovers to the First World War "Bantam Army" and the lyrics of cult indie band Half Man Half Biscuit.

Mark Steel's in Town - radio review

Few comedians could get away with swipes at London's mini India in front of the people who live there - but then Mark Steel does do it with real affection and self-deprecating charm.

Radio Times review

Trying to make light of Derry's troubled past is a tricky business, and this edition finds Mark Steel on not such rip-roaring form as usual. That's not to say he's unfunny, but he does seem to spend a rather lot of time recounting history.

However, he's a consummate professional and he easily gets laughs out of the absurdity of the city being officially named Derry~Londonderry for its European City of Culture tenure; the citizens' renewed enthusiasm for anything, absolutely anything, new; the piffling train service; the rivalry with Belfast; and the fact Derry culture until recently meant "marching with a whistle or singing republican songs".

If you visit he says you may notice a touch of anger in Derry citizens, but from the sound of his audience they're all jovial and happy to laugh at anything - including bombings.

Radio Times review

Mark Steel is so resolutely down to earth that you just know a visit to the hippiest, new ageist place in the world, if indeed it is of this world, would provide him with rich pickings. And so it be. Starting with his description of Glastonbury, plagiarised in my first sentence, he gleefully toys with the mystical, magical reputation of the Somerset town - though some of the biggest laughs are for the reported reactions of Glastonbury-born residents to the more far-out sentiments of new age "incomers".

He also easily gets the audience on his side by pointing out that the town has nothing to do with the festival that bears its name, which is held seven miles away in Pilton. But then he finds himself caught out in the arcane political world of the Somerset cider drinker and the rivalry between Glastonbury and neighbouring town Street.

Not only does Steel manage to entertain, he also slips in a few fascinating bits of information: who knew that both Muhammad Ali and Henry Cooper's boxing gloves from their famous 1966 heavyweight title fight were made in Glastonbury, or that the true tribe of Israel are peoples from Somerset? Listen out also for the most jaw-droppingly funny newspaper headline you're ever likely to hear - you'll be fighting back tears of laughter.

Classic interview: Mark Steel, 2006

Mark Steel is currently on tour with his In Town show, the live spin-off of his Radio 4 series in which he researches the area he is performing in and makes his set specific for that place. In recent years the veteran comic has been keen to do more than mere off-the-peg satirical stand-up. Here is an interview from 2006 when he was on the road and finding references to the French Revolution wherever he played.

Town in Steel

One joy of making the Mark Steel's In Town series is experiencing the immense, sometimes ridiculous sense of pride in each place we visit, especially when there's nothing obvious to show off about.

Mark Steel's back with his Sony Gold-winning stand-up programme, Mark Steel's in Town. And what a lovely show it is: slotting into that Radio 4 6.30pm slot with humanity, humility and, best of all, jokes that genuinely come out of the situation in which he finds himself. On Wednesday, Steel visited Handsworth and managed to engage the locals to such an extent that he could riff about a Rasta weatherman, in full Jamaican accent, and it not be offensive in any way. Good comedy is such an amazing skill, such a balancing act between telling the truth and pointing out faults, between teasing and bullying. Steel manages to be political and make an audience feel as though they've had a great big cuddle. That is a hard thing to do.

Mark Steel's in... Leith

Mark Steel's In Town has come up to the fringe festival to record a one-off episode of the stand-up show - this time about the Edinburgh district of Leith, home of Irvine Welsh, the Proclaimers, and some of the most bonkers pubs in Christendom. Here's some of what we picked up along the way...