COMEDIAN Mark Steel is inviting audiences to look on the brighter side of life in a new show coming to Henley next month.
He says not long ago, it seemed highly unlikely the UK would vote to leave the EU. We had a reasonable opposition to the Tory Government, Donald Trump was a buffoon who surely wasn’t going to beat Hilary Clinton, and Mark was living the married suburban ideal.
But, he adds, since then, things have gone a little askew. Well, that’s not exactly what he said, but this is a family newspaper after all.
Now, he’s on a mission to reassure, in the evening of comedy called: Every Little Thing’s Gonna Be Alright.
It follows on from his previous sell-out show Who Do I Think I Am revealed that his natural father was a world backgammon champion.
Now the star of Radio 4’s Mark Steel’s in Town, and newspaper columnist of the year, is back on the road with a new show that is guaranteed to make the world seem even more mental than it really is.
The show looks at his own adoption.
He says that growing up in humdrum Swanley in Kent with loving parents, he had never been bothered about being an adopted child. But in later life, established as a successful comedian and writer, he decided to search for his biological parents.
What he uncovered was a story so strange, a cast of characters so eccentric and far-fetched that he was transported to social and cultural divides that spanned half the world.
His mother had at first refused to have Mark adopted, while his father later went on to become a key player in Mayfair’s Clermont gambling club and reached the pinnacle of high society.
He says that what happened when he finally contacted both his parents is as moving as it was entirely unexpected.
As well as his own story, told in his uniquely endearing and hilarious voice, Mark delves into the more serious aspects of adoption, single motherhood and the brutality of the social attitudes of the time. He surveys the testimony of mothers and those adopted, and tries to find reasons for his own mother’s crucial and agonising decision. Who Do I Think I Am? is one of the funniest, most heartbreaking stories you’ll ever encounter.
Mark has written and presented many series of Mark Steel’s In Town on BBC Radio 4 and toured it live around the UK. He has presented the BAFTA-nominated Mark Steel Lectures for BBC2, and is a regular on BBC One’s Have I Got News For You and Radio 4’s The News Quiz.
He will be at the Kenton Theatre in Henley on Thursday, June 2. Tickets cost £16.
For more details, or to book, log on to kentontheatre.co.uk or call the box office on: 01491 525050.
