The Mark Steel Lectures

The Mark Steel Lectures (Link expired)

For me, the Radio 4 series of The Mark Steel Lectures was a delight. In each episode, he proved himself to be one of the few people who can talk passionately and entertainingly about relatively academic subjects. Some were naturally more interesting than others - a subject like Aristotle is always going to be difficult to sell to a comedy audience, after all - but all were entertaining, with a good balance of facts and jokes. This was often achieved by concentrating as much on the subjects' personalities as their achievements, and usually the best moments would be the asides, reflecting how modern society would interpret each subject's activities and eccentricities.

Victor Lewis-Smith on The Mark Steel Lectures

Einstein was everybody's favourite scientist, he told us, "because he had sticking-out hair, did equations no one could understand, poked his tongue out and sometimes forgot where he lived", and, better still, he had (like Mr Steel) been considered something of an academic failure at school and a disruptive influence to boot.

In their original radio incarnation, these lectures were only mildly annoying, but in transferring them to television, Mr Steel has ignored the basic audiovisual axiom that less is more. Consequently, the eyes were positively bombarded with unfunny graphics and humour-free sight gags, but made it well-nigh impossible to concentrate on the estuary voice that was ranting ineluctably at the viewer (on second thoughts, perhaps that was a blessing in disguise).

Heard the one about Darwin's worms?

Simon Schama and the rest may have made history popular, but why do they always leave out the funny bits, asks Mark Steel.

Mark Steel lectures on laughter

Comedian and writer Mark Steel is hard at work editing the forthcoming TV version of his popular BBC Radio Four series The Mark Steel lectures.