Doncastrians were out in full force for Mark Steel’s Leopard gig. Admittedly, some were there purely because there was nothing else to do on a Sunday night, as indeed, with forthright Yorkshireness, they told the man. Some hadn’t even heard of him. As ever, Mark won them all over in an instant in his own inimitable way – with insults.
First, he called Doncaster a town when it’s so very, very clearly a city; then he said the theatre (a building that gives no hint of actually being a theatre) is so mighty fine it’s far more than Doncaster deserves. But warm, sincere affection always permeate Steel insults and jibes for he truly delights in the company of all his esteemed audiences, deriving immeasurable pleasure from getting to know them and uncovering their amusing, regional quirks. Through a ping-pong of lively reactions and lovely interactions, with heckles and unexpected moments skilfully embraced and gratefully relished, a sturdy rapport builds, ensuring an exceptionally good time is had by all (apart from the odd person who faints.)
The superb skills that the charismatic Steel displays with such apparent ease and relaxed, cheeky-chatty fluency have been honed over forty plus years now. They’ve shaped a long career as a cricket-loving-football-fan comedian, author, columnist, radio entertainer, TV panellist and milkman and serving him splendidly through thirteen hilarious series of the award-winning Radio 4 show, Mark Steel’s in Town. Here again, his infinite fascination for places, communities, people and their quirks fuels his perceptive, well-informed, frank observations and inspires his boundless energy and off-the-cuff quick wit.
This tour’s theme is, of course, the Leopard In the House, from the book of the same name. This metaphorical leopard stands for the life-threatening cancer that took up residence in Mark’s neck a couple of years back and left only after a whole lot of scary medical coaxing. But there’s humour even in the horrible and the show’s hilarity has people nationwide rolling in the Isles. Positivity, even in the face of adversity, shines through all the way as we hear about the wonders of NHS care and of feisty, funny fellow patients, as well as about the grueling, not-so-fabulous aspects of chemo, radiotherapy masks, miscommunications, hospital parking, lost biopsies and doctors who touch wood in the hopes of keeping you alive.
The show, quite wisely, doesn’t by any means travel in the Holby-Ward-Ten-meets-Casualty vein straight through, though. As medical and anatomical episodes dip, dodge and drop in, they’re very widely interspersed with swathes of Steel’s customary themes and topics, so political satire, incensed, vitriolic rants about social injustice and excursions into surreal over-exaggeration are all very much in the mix.
Master of pace and variety, Steel rings the changes, interweaving ongoing threads with digressions, jokes, running jibes and tangents whilst miraculously maintaining full, lively momentum for over two hours. His fabulous talents for mimicry, accents and impersonations come to the fore in setting multiple characters vividly before us, while projected photos of people and events he’s talking about also add intimate, meaningful context. There’s a keyboard, too, for a bit of energetic boogie-woogie, the odd sing-along or a reminisce about past acts in working men’s clubs, who bizarrely peppered serious song renditions with rough interruptions of guffawed jokes.
Tossed into the bouncing, leaping tumble-drier mix, too, come royal persons, Brexit, Jimmy Tarbuck, Mark’s 100-year-old mother who’s sure you can never be too careful, warnings that we must consider with full wokeness the feelings of the Taliban, Thatcher, Gary Neville, Boris Johnson, three hugs with his son, what’s in Covid jabs versus what’s in kebabs, Rees-Mogg, Farage and foreign languages, Mark’s daughter and granddaughter, the shark in the Co-op and the on/off relationship with Shappi Shaparak Khorsandi, – and that names but the tip of the lettuce.
Steel’s joy at being alive, no matter what terrible things are going on in the world, and his delight at being with an audience are stronger than ever since his cancer debacle. Apart from the one chap who keeled over during the tube-up-the-nose-mucus-saliva-epiglottal episode (or maybe when he heard just one ‘f’ word too many?) everyone was with Mark at every moment, enjoying his amiable company as much as he enjoys theirs, and they all left the theatre that they don’t deserve, feeling uplifted, exhilarated and positively glad to be alive, which is, in fact, what it’s all about.
Eileen Caiger Gray
