MARK STEEL

The Platform, Morecambe
Friday 7 April 2006

I'm used to listening to Mark Steel because my friend Jeff downloads his radio shows from the internet onto CD and plays them when I have to drive him places. So consequently although I wouldn't touch History with a bargepole when I was at school, I know that Mary Shelley was the first Science Fiction writer. Ever. And that she wrote Frankenstein when she was 18. 18! I know loads more too, in fact, thanks to Mr Steel, I'm quite the renaissance dude these days. Back to Jeff, I have to drive him about because he has a spine injury that makes him unable to sit at all. He can't stand up for long either, though he can walk about a bit, and consequently there are people grown up and signing on now that were babes in arms the last time he went to a gig.

The idea of seeing Mark Steel live was too much to go without though, so an exchange of phone calls with the Platform took place, and their totally helpful marketing staff agreed that Jeff could lie on a mat at the side of the hall to watch the show. Which he duly did. The staff continued to be helpful all night, so when a bunch of people brought their chairs over and started sitting right in front of him, completely blocking off what scant view he had, a nice security man came and pointed him out to them (amazing what you can miss if you don't know what to look for, isn't it) so they shifted over.

Mark Steel has a huge amount of material and a great warmth in delivery - he is the dream history teacher, pointing out what we all know, that the dry list of dates and rulers served up as history at school is a ridiculous perspective on the past. "The only date most people can remember is the Battle of Hastings. And probably even in 1071 they had trouble remembering that - 'Ooh it can't have been five years already can it?"

The period that fascinates him is the french revolution - and he tells this story in a way that hasn't been told before. In fact I thought I'd heard him tell it before in one of his BBC lectures. But he brings in new ideas and asides so it's all fresh.

He described revolutionary meetings, imagining how some people would say, 'No, we can't storm the Bastille, that's impossible, let's dig a tunnel' and others might say, 'We're no good at storming, we'll do some juggling at the back' - and you begin to grasp what an amazing undertaking it was and what a miracle it happened at all. The story is hilarious, reduced to a human scale, sometimes ironic, sometimes surreal, always charged with the energy of the unfamiliar becoming recognisable.

He describes Tom Paine, accused of preaching atheism. "How do you preach atheism? Go knocking on the front doors of religious people on a Sunday morning saying 'Have you heard the bad news?'" He pointed out what is always overlooked - that the poorest people in french society were the slaves of San Domingo and that possibly the greatest and most lasting achievement of the revolution was the abolition of slavery.

He is unimpressed by the Catholic church's contribution to social justice. "They finally apologised officially to Galileo in 1998. Give them another 100 years and they might get around to apologising to all the choirboys."

The Islamic version of heaven doesn't convince him either. "72 virgins? When you get to our age you really want someone with a bit more experience, don't you? You don't want some inexperienced teenager yanking at you." He pantomimes being a suicide bomber in heaven, jackknifing away from some Little Britain type teen houri, "Ow! Be a bit gentle, I was blown up on a bus this morning."

Iraq, Morecambe, town planning, The royal family, Virgin trains, the London olympics, writing children's books, tour guides - many of these issues have light cast on them by the events of the french revolution - and others just crop up anyway. It is hilarious, moving and intelligent. There's no support act, he's up there for well over two hours, with a short interval, and he builds a comfortable rapport with the audience, sharing his fascination with the foibles and idiosyncrasies of the individuals caught up in the developments of history past and present, painting a picture of real people - in contrast to the sanitised, 2-dimensional figureheads passed down for mass consumption by conventional 'historical' accounts.

So Jeff's first gig out in the new millennium is a success and thank god (& M. Steel) for that. After the gig I ask if MS can come out for a photo, which he obligingly does. He knows someone at one of the tables and hangs out chatting as the staff clear up. I mention that my friend has been lying on the floor at the back of the hall. He tells me the staff had told him about it. Jeff wanders up and I ask for a picture of them together and as I'm taking it Mark continues the conversation asking with heartfelt earnestness, "The poor sod, how does he manage?" "Er... it's me," says Jeff, smiling coyly. "It's you! Oh f*** I'm sorry." It's a prize moment - and we're in bits. And MS is together enough to share the joke and not to dig himself in any deeper. He'd been under the impression that the guy on the floor at the back of the hall lived permanently on a stretcher and couldn't move at all.

He is such a nice easy guy and they were all off to the Kings Arms for a drink. Tragically we couldn't go along - Jeff had done more than he could really manage and needed to get home. (Poor sods us indeed.) I wanted to go. I mean, half my life is spent pushing wheelchairs or carrying mats. All that talent and cultural iconage being so sociable and accessible was frying my circuits. To be honest I think I mainly wanted to gape at him and pat his hair and say 'pretty, pretty gentleman' in a Charles Laughton voice and maybe drool a bit. So a lucky escape for Mr Steel really, and at least I still have my dignity.

It was a brilliant gig, fast, funny, clever and cool.
He'll be back and so will we.

Satori
8/4/06