Mark Steel
Mark Steel’s performance was shambolic. His word, I hasten to add, not mine. This was Steel’s first live show since the first lockdown, and it’s fair to say it was a little rough around the edges. He’s such an affable bloke, however, that it didn’t really matter. Eighty minutes in his company zipped by, despite the unseasonably cold breeze blowing through our Covid-resistant pop-up venue.
He was just one of many performers I’ve seen of late that have returned to the stage after what must be the longest break of their careers, so it should have come as no surprise that he might be a tad rusty. The conceit of long form comedy is that the comic is ruminating on life, taking his audience on a seamless narrative of loosely connected thoughts, all apparently coming to him unbidden, on stage and in that moment. We know it’s a conjuring trick, and all this wit has been sweated over, edited and memorised, but we willingly suspect disbelief. Perhaps it’s a testament to the skill with which he normally performs that I didn’t expect to see him armed with a sheath of notes. Steel simply hasn’t had the opportunity to road test any of the material he used last night, so while it was all steeped in his wonderful use of language, it wasn’t quite as structured as you might expect.
The evening started well with an extended diatribe about the virus itself, effectively holding up a mirror to the absurdity of the government’s handling of the pandemic. Postulating that the virus has been lying in wait for a time when Hancock and Johnson were in power was a funny idea, but probably a little too close to the truth to be truly hilarious. It was great to hear an old guard lefty comic have a pop at the Tories – after the sad demise of Jeremy Hardy, Steel is practically the last man standing – but the current crop of ministers are arguably beyond parody. Apart from a spot on impression of Boris, I got the sense that Steel was struggling to find something more ridiculous to say that they haven’t already done.
I hugely enjoyed his attack of anti-vaxers and conspiracy theories, however, and for me was pushing against an open door. Yet this, again, must be a minefield for comics. You have to wonder how many people shared his sentiments, given the pockets of notable silence during the routine. The same could be said for his somewhat ingratiating comments about incomers converting barns. “They must drive you mad,” he said, somewhat naively assuming they weren’t the very people sitting watching him. That said, he did score a few easy wins with his Norwich audience, a city he seems to have a genuine knowledge and affection for. “Is the puppet man still here?” he asked at one point, chuckling to himself as this got one of the biggest reactions of the night.
It was at this point we got the sound of crashing gears, as he lost his way a bit, apologised, and ambled over to consult his notes. Rather like peeking behind the curtain to see what the Wizard of Oz looks like, this was all a bit too revealing. Here was a performer stumbling over his lines, as surely as an actor in a play, and initially it was the tiniest bit embarrassing. It was all done so shamelessly and openly, however, that it sort of became part of the act. What he subsequently delivered was a routine that revolved largely around the complexity of the buttons on domestic appliances. This obviously touched a nerve with the audience but was, for me, a little too close to grumpy old man territory. Thereafter, we got his views on the royal family, the Olympics and the deep strangeness of Bungay. This was scattergun stuff. It was winningly performed and always with his signature faux outrage. At one point, he managed to get angry about people getting angry, which was something to behold.
Ultimately, it didn’t really matter that sometimes a line of thought withered on the vine. Or that it reappeared later, once he had remembered a great chunk of material that had slipped his mind. It was all pretty good stuff, and delivered with the simple and sincere joy of finally being allowed to do this sort of thing again. To paraphrase the late, great Eric Morecambe, he said all the right jokes, but not necessarily in the right order.
