I'M just about to start
interviewing Mark Steel when he stops me mid sentence with shout of
"Oh no!".
It seems tiles have
fallen off his roof during the night leaving a gaping hole and he's
only just realised.
Apologising profusely
he dashes off. Ten minutes later though we are back on the phone and
he assures me someone "who knows what they are doing" will
be dispatched up a ladder to check the damage shortly.
"It's a disaster,"
Mark laughs loudly. "There's a massive big hole as though the
Luftwaffe has been round! I'm absolutely useless at anything
practical but this looks a bit serious."
Holes in the roof aside
Mark is on good form and once he gets chatting there's no stopping
him.
The 53-year-old
award-winning comedian, writer, columnist and radio presenter is at
his home in Crystal Palace for a few days before he resumes a tour of
the UK with his hit show Mark Steel's in Town.
Based on his hugely
successful Radio 4 series of the same name, said show sees Mark
travel the length and breadth of the country chatting to his audience
about the place he's visiting with a selection facts, humorous or
otherwise about local notable people, landmarks and customs.
It also features
anecdotes, historical information and Mark's own observations,
delivered in his trademark affable and easy going manner.
And he insists rather
than poking fun, it's a chance for him to have a "bit of banter"
with the audience and shed light on and celebrate the town's more
unusual and eccentric aspects and local idiosyncrasies.
"The idea is that
I have to find out as much as I can about the place and talk about
what I've discovered," he explains.
"It could be unusual, historical, but generally funny things. I love the quirkiness of each town I visit and the fact people are proud of their heritage. It's fantastic there are all these differences and we should celebrate that."
"It could be unusual, historical, but generally funny things. I love the quirkiness of each town I visit and the fact people are proud of their heritage. It's fantastic there are all these differences and we should celebrate that."
The tour will take him
to Blackheath Halls on Saturday, February 15 and he says he's looking
forward to it, not least because it's an area he knows a bit about
already.
"I found out quite
a few gems the last time I was in Blackheath including the fact it
was the rallying point for Wat Tyler's Peasants' Revolt of 1381,"
he says.
"But I'm
desperately trying to write some new material - or rather I was until
I realised the roof had a hole in it," he jokes.
He says it has been a
fascinating journey in more ways than one. Information comes from a
variety of sources and he clearly takes the research seriously.
Indeed he revels in the oddities he discovers.
"My house is
stuffed with books like The Pavements of Kettering, The History of
the Lamp Post and the Engine Shed in Walsall," he laughs.
"That really was
about one engine shed. It got redecorated in 1927 or something and a
bit of wood fell off in 1931 and then it got bombed in the war. It's
all just fantastic stuff!
"One of my
favourites is a book called The Railway Comes to Didcot which
professes to be a history of the town's railway. But the opening line
is a classic and says 'this is in no way a history of the railway of
Didcot'. Priceless," he chuckles.
So what has he found
out about Blackheath I ask.
"I'm not going to
be short of material," he chuckles. "I know it reasonably
well as I live just down the road and I've probably got a book about
it somewhere."
"The nature of
Blackheath is that it's very villagey. In a way it's not really
London so there's that element.
"I read that years
ago there were people doing singing workshops where expectant mothers
learned how to sing to their unborn child. You can't sing just
anything to your unborn child," he says in mock horror.
And don't be surprised
if he takes to Twitter to ask his more than 83,000 followers to
impart some nuggets about Blackheath.
"Forums and
Twitter are great for information," he says aimiably. "The
thing about Twitter is that you never know what people will say. I do
get some brilliant replies and sometimes 20 or 30 people might
mention the same thing.
"One I got last
time I was in Blackheath was that Cafe Rouge wasn't so much a
restaurant as a crèche where two-year-olds have already learned how
to order," he chuckles at the memory.
Other things he says he
may touch on will include poking fun at the establishment, something
for which he is perhaps best known.
"Politics is
becoming quite polarised again," he sighs. "The Tories
clearly think the way to get re-elected is to repeat two messages -
that we blame people on welfare and immigrants.
"I think young
people are just bemused by that attitude especially in big towns and
cities where they will have friends from all over the world so they
don't buy that.
"But the
government is doing things that are as unpalatable as Thatcher did."
He cites proposals to
downgrade Lewisham Hospital as an example.
"It was an
appalling decision," he says. "But the campaign against
their proposals was brilliant.
"However, I got
spotted on one of the marches just as I was passing Millwall's bus
and was asked to have my picture taken on it with [club mascot] Zampa
the lion - I was wearing my Crystal Palace scarf at the time so was
slightly uneasy!" he laughs.
But he acknowledges the
comedic landscape has changed since he came to the fore in the 1980s.
"In the late 1970s
if you went to a comedy show there would be one comic on and then a
juggler and then someone doing poems about feminism and then it would
end up with a magician which was quite normal.
"At the Comedy
Store in the 1980s if you did 20 minutes slagging off the government
you wouldn't survive it. I was much less strident then than now. If
you do your own show you can say what you like."
Which brings us neatly
back to Blackheath.
"We've had the
Olympics come to this part of London, it's where the Marathon starts
and then there's football," he says.
"So there will be
loads to talk about."
Mark Steel is at
Blackheath Halls on Saturday, February 15. Tickets cost £16. Call
the box office on 020 8305 9300.
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