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, Tring, Salisbury, Newport and Paris. And for the first time, there will be extended versions of each episode available on BBC sounds.

Written and performed by Mark Steel

Additional material by Pete Sinclair

A BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4

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 Rothschild, where he goes to see the exhibit of fleas dressed as Mexicans.

In this series, Mark will also be popping to Nottingham, The Isles of Scilly, Salisbury, Newport and Paris. And for the first time, there will be extended versions of each episode available on BBC sounds.

Written and performed by Mark Steel

Additional material by Pete Sinclair

A BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4

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 mushy peas. He learns about local legends, Robin Hood, Lord Byron, DH Lawrence, Brian Clough, and the most famous of all, Frank the xylophone player. He looks at the history of the Luddites, the cheese riots and visits three pubs that are all the oldest in the country.

As well as Nottingham, In this series, Mark be popping to the Isles of Scilly, Tring, Salisbury, Newport and Paris. And for the first time, there will be extended versions of each episode available on BBC sounds.

Written and performed by Mark Steel

Additional material by Pete Sinclair

A BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4

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 Brunswick Centre.

The full box set of all episodes (with well over 50 towns visited) is available now wherever you get your podcasts.

Written by and starring...Mark Steel

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 dedicated to the designer William Morris who used to live there and there's evidence of a recent war too in the form of the cycling scheme known as "mini-Holland." Hopefully Mark will tread carefully. With guest local MP Stella Creasy.

The full box set of all episodes (with well over 50 towns visited) is available now wherever you get your podcasts.

Written by and starring...Mark Steel

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 role in the first and second World Wars. Does a town blighted by so many closures show any evidence of green shoots? Mark presents his findings to a local audience at The Phoenix Theatre and as ever gets away with just the right amount of affection rudeness and we learn more about a very distinctive coastal town in the UK.

The full box set of all episodes (with well over 50 towns visited) is available now wherever you get your podcasts.

Written by and starring...Mark Steel

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 to the broadcast shows.

Written and performed by Mark Steel.

Production co-ordinator: Beverly Tagg

Producer: Carl Cooper

A BBC Studios Production, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2020.

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, just by the church where Shakespeare is buried, across from the Shakespeare ice-cream boat, not far from the Hamlet statue, if they've noticed any sort of theme to the place.

Mark also looks at what else Stratford has to offer and visits the Butterfly Farm, the Tudor World museum and he discovers that the town was also once the home of the Teletubbies.

Written and performed by Mark Steel.

Additional material by Pete Sinclair.

Production co-ordinator: Beverly Tagg

Producer: Carl Cooper

A BBC Studios Production for BBC Radio 4 Extra, first broadcast in November 2020.

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, accompanied by the sound of the waves, with a busy zip-wire ride and squawking seagulls overhead.

It's a first for the show but a completely normal day in life of Brighton's locals.

Written and performed by Mark Steel.

Additional material by Pete Sinclair.

Production co-ordinator: Beverly Tagg

Producer: Carl Cooper

A BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in November 2020.

Comedian Mark Steel visits the island of Malta and performs a bespoke stand-up show for the local audience.