Mark Steel's in Town

Mark Steel's In Town - Nether Edge

“...a place where all the baristas know your name..."

This week, Mark is in Nether Edge, a leafy suburb of Sheffield which wants to become a village. Here he samples the local honey, visits the local shops and cafes, a rum keg, the bowls club that once threw out Ronnie Wood for inappropriate behaviour, and he talks to the passionate locals about a campaign by the council to make the area less leafy ...

Mark Steel's in Town - Stoke-on-Trent

This week, Mark is visiting the town of Stoke-on-Trent, in Staffordshire.

This is the 13th series of Mark's award-winning show where he travels around the country visiting towns that have nothing in common but their uniqueness. After thoroughly researching each town, Mark writes and performs a bespoke evening of comedy for a local audience.

As well as Stoke-on-Trent, in this series, Mark be will a...

This week Mark visits the West Sussex town of East Grinstead.

This is the 13th series of Mark's award-winning show where he travels around the country visiting towns that have nothing in common but their uniqueness. After thoroughly researching each town, Mark writes and performs a bespoke evening of comedy for a local audience.

As well as East Grinstead, in this series, Mark be will also be popping to Margate, Malvern, Stoke-on-Tren...

Mark Steel's In Town - Malvern

“...if ever after I'm dead you hear someone whistling this tune on the Malvern Hills, don't be alarmed, it's only me" - Edward Elgar.

This week Mark visits the Malvern hills in Worcestershire.

This is the 13th series of Mark's award-winning show where he travels around the country visiting towns that have nothing in common but their uniqueness. After thoroughly researching each town, Mark writes and per...

Mark Steel's In Town - Margate

“...a nice spot not vulgarised by crowds of literary people...” Oscar Wilde

In this first episode Mark visits the lovely seaside town of Margate in the Thanet district of Kent.

A magical place where T.S Eliot wrote a verse of The Wasteland, J.M.W Turner painted views of the Harbour, Tracy Emin spent her formative years and Pete Doherty has his name on a wall of fame in a cafe for eating a "mega breakfast...

Mark Steel's In Town - Paris

Mark Steel is back with the 12th series of his award-winning show that travels around the country visiting towns that have nothing in common but their uniqueness. After thoroughly researching each town, Mark writes and performs a bespoke evening of comedy for a local audience.

In this final episode Mark visits Paris. Yeah, that Paris. The one in France. Where he performs on a boat on the river Seine. In t...

Mark Steel's In Town - Paris

Mark Steel is back with the 12th series of his award winning show that travels around the country visiting towns that have nothing in common but their uniqueness. After thoroughly researching each town, Mark writes and performs a bespoke evening of comedy for a local audience.

In this final episode Mark visits Paris. Yeah, that Paris. The one in France. Where he performs on a boat on the river Seine.

In ...

Mark Steel's In Town - Newport

Mark Steel is back with the 12th series of his award winning show that travels around the country visiting towns that have nothing in common but their uniqueness. After thoroughly researching each town, Mark writes and performs a bespoke evening of comedy for a local audience.

In this fifth episode Mark visits Newport in South Wales.

In this series, Mark will also be popping to Nottingham, Tring, The I...

Mark Steel's In Town - Salisbury

Mark Steel is back with the 12th series of his award winning show that travels around the country visiting towns that have nothing in common but their uniqueness. After thoroughly researching each town, Mark writes and performs a bespoke evening of comedy for a local audience.

In this fourth episode Mark visits Salisbury in Wiltshire

In this series, Mark will also be popping to Nottingham, Tring, The...

Mark Steel's In Town - The Isles of Scilly

Mark Steel is back with the 12th series of his award winning show that travels around the country visiting towns that have nothing in common but their uniqueness. After thoroughly researching each town, Mark writes and performs a bespoke evening of comedy for a local audience.

In this third episode Mark visits The Isles of Scilly.

In this series, Mark will also be popping to Nottingham, Trin...

Mark Steel's In Town - Tring

Mark Steel is back with the 12th series of his award winning show that travels around the country visiting towns that have nothing in common but their uniqueness. After thoroughly researching each town, Mark writes and performs a bespoke evening of comedy for a local audience.

In this second episode Mark travels to Tring in Hertfordshire, home of the Natural History Museum, former private museum of Walter...

Mark Steel's In Town - Nottingham

"Ay up me duck"

Mark Steel is back with the 12th series of his award winning show that travels around the country visiting towns that have nothing in common but their uniqueness. After thoroughly researching each town, Mark writes and performs a bespoke evening of comedy for a local audience.

In this first episode Mark visits Nottingham, a contrarian city, full of heroes, rebels, caves and lovers of...

There’s one thing you definitely can’t miss in Whitby and that’s the ruined abbey up on a cliff looking down on the town. It’s also hard to miss the jawbone of a blue whale set atop the opposite hill and the fact that Dracula was researched and written here by Bram Stoker. You’ll not go wanting if you are in search of a chip, either. Mark Steel manages to dodge the seagulls and presents his findings to a local audience at The Bruns...

Walthamstow has got plenty going for it - "it has the requisite villagey middle-class bit, but with a proper gor-blimey guv'nor East End heart", says one newspaper article and Mark finds a town mid-gentrification. The dog track has gone, the famously long market remains but there is also a Viking Shop and an extraordinary showroom and workshop with a vast range of neon light fittings called God's Own Junkyard. There is a museum ded...

The famous Blyth Staithes (created for off-loading coal into ships) were the backdrop for one of the grimmest scenes in the Michael Caine classic Get Carter - the smoggy industrial view at the time described by the director as an "absolute vision of hell". Undaunted, comedian Mark Steel travels to this part of Northumberland and finds a fascinating industrial legacy, a posh pub, a very nice beach and prominent indications of its ro...

Mark Steel with a short series of shows recorded during the coronavirus pandemic.

Following two COVID-friendly live outdoor episodes Mark is back for a special, one-off show performed to a remote, virtual audience where he'll be talking about some of the places he has visited over the course of 10 series of Mark Steel’s in Town.

He’ll explore what’s happened since his visits and tell us about some of the things that never made it in ...

Another of Mark Steel's short series of shows recorded outdoors during the coronavirus pandemic.

The bubonic plague didn't stop Shakespeare from working.

So for this show, Mark performs on a tree stump in The Dell Gardens, Stratford-upon-Avon in front of a small but lovely local crowd.

In between being interrupted by geese, Mark asks the people gathered on the grass in the RSC's outdoor performance area on the banks of the River Avon,...

Mark Steel kicks off a short series recorded during the coronavirus pandemic.

For the first ever outdoor Mark Steel's In Town episode - and BBC Radio 4 Comedy's first ever COVID-friendly audience show - what better place to start than on the beach in Brighton?

The town is famous for its pavilion, piers and progressive nature as well as for being the playground of George, Prince Regent

But Mark is performing on the pebbles, accomp...