MEET MARK STEEL
Comedian and author Mark Steel muses on stand-up, comedy and the French Revolution with James Rampton...

What's the sign that Mark Steel has well and truly made it? His name was recently the answer to a question on University Challenge. I can retire now, eh?," jokes the comedian. Me and Brahms and Brunel!"

But it's hardly surprising that Mark has attained such a status. His TV show, The Mark Steel Lectures, in which he delivers coruscating talks on a variety of figures from history, has a hugely devoted following on both BBC2 and BBC4 and has been nominated for both Bafta and Royal Television Society Awards. The critics have been lining up to praise the show. The Daily Telegraph remarked that it was an utter joy to see this popular iconoclast conveying so much about his subject matter by humorous means, and in a manner that celebrates rather than patronises curiosity."

For its part, The Sunday Times reckoned that The Mark Steel Lectures contains more laugh-out-loud moments in 30 minutes than most sitcoms deliver in a series." The Times, meanwhile, commented that the series is a whole new way of teaching history. Steel mixes jokes and facts brilliantly."

The comedian is equally in demand as an inspired panelist on such shows as Have I Got News For You, QI, Never Mind the Buzzcocks and Mock the Week. In addition, he is a first-rate writer. He pens a hilarious, biting weekly column for The Independent and has authored a number of best-selling books, which have also had reviewers reaching for the superlatives. Time Out, for example, observed that Steel writes with zip and earnestness, showing a keen eye for detail and an eagerness to impart knowledge. Terrific."

But it's as a stand-up comedian that Mark first made his name more than two decades ago, and that is the discipline to which he is now returning with a tour that includes a trip to Morecambe's Platform in April. He's a bravura live comedian, capable of making astute points in the most blindingly funny way.

This spring he is touring the country with a dazzling new show, Vive La Revolution," which capitalizes on the success of Mark's book of the same name. Intermingling trenchant humour with tales of The Terror, tumbrels and turmoil in late 18th Century France, Mark will be bringing Robespierre to Runcorn, Danton to Durham, the Sans Culottes to Salford and the Bastille to Birmingham.

And he just can't wait. Even after performing live for more than twenty years, stand-up still gives Mark a unique buzz. Arriving for our central London interview in a very natty dark trilby teamed with blue jeans and a grey shirt, the comedian is as sharply amusing off stage as he is on it.

A cricket fanatic ("It's the most magnificent way to waste a day!"), Mark starts by expressing his delight about going out on the road with Vive La Revolution. "There's something brilliant about doing a live show," beams the comic, who is originally from Swanley in Kent. It's the sheer immediacy of stand-up that I love.

"It's the ultimate test of whether or not something's funny," he continues. "There are thousands of books that people say are funny, but I always think, 'all right, try reading those whimsical short stories out at midnight at the Comedy Store in front of a room full of completely pissed tax inspectors and see whether they still seem funny!

"Even when they were making The Office," he points out, "they had no idea whether or not it was funny because there was no audience there. As a stand-up, you instantly know whether something is funny. An actor would say the same about doing theatre. There must be some nights where Michael Gambon thinks, ‘blimey, there's a real tension in the auditorium. I've really got ‘em tonight.' There is nothing else like the live experience."

Mark is also drawn to stand-up because it is so different from writing. It's the opposite of doing a book," he reflects. "Then, when you think of a joke, there's no one to tell it to. You have to wait a year for the book to come out. Then someone might have a laugh when reading it in a train, but you won't be there to hear it!

"Being a comedian is like having a terrible illness," he adds with a laugh. You just have this irresistible urge to perform."

Mark particularly relishes the prospect of performing Vive La Revolution because he finds it such a stimulating topic. I've always been fascinated by the French Revolution," he enthuses. It's a subject that never ceases to amaze me. Almost overnight, society was turned upside down. All of a sudden, the aristocrats were deposed and the peasants were running the village.

"It was a cataclysmic time, and it threw up some staggering characters. The two main Revolutionary leaders, Robespierre and Danton, are so astonishing, they could almost have been created by Hollywood."

Hitting his rhetorical stride now, Mark outlines their contrasting personalities. "Robespierre is an utterly austere figure. He was called ‘the Incorruptible'. He had no relationships and hardly ever ate. There was this brilliant quote from him in a letter: ‘people say I am not someone who enjoys the finer trappings in life. But events prove this wrong. For at my house recently there were quite a lot of cakes, and I was almost tempted to have one'. That was his George Best moment!

"Loads of history books say that because he was the father of the Terror, Robespierre was like Stalin or Hitler, but I don't see him that way," says Mark. "Bear in mind that he was the most powerful man in France, and yet he was still lodging with a family of carpenters. Before the Revolution, the country was ruled by a man who lived in the biggest palace in the world. And when France went bankrupt, the King merely bought himself two more palaces! Robespierre was a breath of fresh air after that."

Mark carries on by describing the character of Robespierre's brother in arms. "Danton was the complete opposite. He was absolutely debauched. When he was Minister for Justice, he went missing for three days on a bender. He was known as a terrific womanizer. At a recent celebration of the French Revolution, one Minister said ‘I like a man who screws'. Only a French Minister would say that!

"When he spoke, Robespierre was the arch revolutionary; like Lenin, he was very pure and austere. Danton, on the other hand, never used notes, but he always spoke with genuine passion and great verbal flourishes. When he went in front of his troops, like Trotsky, he was an inspiring orator and seen as a great hero."

Mark believes that this is an apt moment to be reflecting on the lessons of the French Revolution. "It really fits the times," the comedian muses. "At the moment, the people who run the world think there is only one way to do so -- by parceling everything off to bug business and building uncontrollably massive armed forces to assert your power wherever you fancy. But most people don't agree with that way of doing things and find it distasteful -- remember the protests about the war in Iraq.

The similarity with late 18th Century France lies in the complacency of this apparently invincible force. The French Royal Family at that time seemed even more invincible than George W Bush does now. Then, suddenly, along came an event that overthrew all that. Now, there's a sense of the same rebellious population. Look at the power of the anti-globalisation demos."
Mark provides a good example of what he means. Last summer at the Glastonbury Festival, Tony Benn was due to give a talk in a tent holding 4,000 people. I thought, ‘that's a bit optimistic'. But when I went along to the lecture, the tent was so packed, I couldn't get in! Coldplay didn't get such a rapturous reception -- and the great thing was, the average age there must have been about twenty.

Benn is the very opposite of Tony Blair -- no spin, just principles. He had this tremendous opening line, delivered with no great flourish: ‘I've given up protesting. Now I'm going to start demanding!' The place went absolutely mad. At that moment, if he'd said, ‘get a pitchfork, we're going to march in Number 10,' everybody would have done it. Tony Benn is lovely, but it's not just him. He mirrors the mood of the times."

Mark is passionately engaged in current affairs, but does that make him a political comedian? No," he replies. I can see why people might say that, but if you label yourself as anything, it cuts you off from everything else. Also, if you call yourself a ‘political comedian,' someone will immediately say, ‘I don't think he was very political. At a time when Shell are moving into South West Nigeria, I waited in vain for any mention of that in Mr Steel's act'.

And I don't think politicians are the only people who can change things. The world is as it is partly because of the actions of the vast majority of people. If there hadn't been such a strong anti-war movement, the Americans would have been a lot further down the road of invading somewhere else."

So what does the future hold for the comedian? Well, a new series of The Mark Steel Lectures, featuring talks about Rene Descartes, Oliver Cromwell, Geoffrey Chaucer, Charlie Chaplin, Che Guevara and Harriet Tubman, starts on BBC4 on Thursday 23 February.

The programme has received enthusiastic responses from the most unexpected places. You know it's not the sort of show that is ever going to go out at 8pm on ITV1 on a Wednesday," Mark concedes. But it is still very gratifying when someone comes up to me in the street and says, ‘I never knew all that stuff about Freud and the id and the ego. I was doing my psychiatry finals, and you helped me immensely'.

But what is even better is when someone at Selhurst Park says to me, ‘that show on Newton -- bloody funny!' That's what I really want -- positive feedback from some bloke queuing up for a hot dog at the football!"

All in all, then, things are going swimmingly for Mark, but, ever modest, he is taking nothing for granted. "It's a great position to be in," he acknowledges. "Shall I write another book, or make another series, or watch sport all year? I sometimes feel like one of those aristocrats toppled by the French Revolution, someone who just lounges around all day while the rest of the populace toils.

"Of course, it'll all go horribly wrong. In 20 years' time, I'll be on Challenge TV presenting a programme where viewers have to phone in and guess how many matches are in a box -- ‘Dave from Lowestoft, thanks very much for calling. What's the weather like up there today?'

" Things always go horribly wrong -- just look at history!"

Web Link: www.offthekerb.co.uk

• Read a review of the Platform gig by Satori