Comedy review: Mark Steel - Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

MARK Steel is a worried man. He’s fretting about being in his 50s, which means he’s getting ever closer to taking a cruise holiday and he’s concerned that he now has a teenage son with his own ideas and, it seems, a promising talent for jokewriting.

Mark Steel

Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh

* * *

But above all, and for the purposes of this tour, he’s fairly vexed about the state of Britain’s towns and cities. Don’t they all look, well, a bit samey?

It’s not a staggeringly original observation, but one which he uses as the kick-off point for whistle-stopping around the country.

Mark Steel’s In Town effectively celebrates the individual quirks and odd landmarks which help to retain the authentic character of a location and its community. Amid well-known spots such as the Angel of the North and the primary-coloured houses of Tobermory, he encounters the Walsall Hippo (not as exciting as it sounds) and suffers from New Galloway not having any cashpoints.

Despite the show nudging the two and a quarter hour mark, it has surprisingly few lulls and he mixes the town-talk with amusing if often predictable rants about bankers, the jubilee and TV remote controls being impossible to navigate.

His material about Edinburgh also veers towards the glaringly obvious: aren’t those trams a waste of money and doesn’t Leith Walk have some crazy shops?

But the sports-obsessed Steel saves the day by digging out some genuinely thought-provoking and funny facts about the locales he’s dropped into.

Perhaps a shorter and more focused show would have hit home with more power.