Went to see Mark Steel at the Apex on Thursday night. We’ve seen him on a couple of occasions before but this was the first time at Bury St. Edmunds. This tour was built around his search for his birth parents, which he admits he had little interest in pursuing until the birth of his own son. As we shall see, his own sense of self was confused, not clarified by his discoveries.
He spent the first section of the show arguing his very firm belief that our ideas and character are a result of nurture, and that identity is not genetic. It sets the scene for a few minutes exploring his own sense of self as a South Londoner and uses that as a basis for a very funny rant about the state of Britain in 2016. It wouldn’t be a Mark Steel show without a healthy dose of political comedy, but although he manages to shoehorn a little in here and there, this was in the main a very personal story.
I won’t provide too much detail, in case you’re about to see the show, but needless to say it was a bit of a shock for Mark to find out that his father was a gambler, socialite and millionaire pal of Lord Lucan (amongst other things). It’s also quite revealing as a piece of social history, with some very different views on adoptions to those that are found today. It was warmly told, and very funny, but although he quite understandably holds to the nurture verses nature philosophy, it cannot be denied that the result of the search for his natural parents through up quite a few curve-balls along the way. As he says himself at one point, he must have just made all this up because he’s run out of towns to talk about! It certainly provided a bucket-load of irony for any self respecting left wing comedian.
As we chose to stop overnight, we also managed to squeeze in a couple of films at Bury’s lovely small picture house – “Golden Years“, a slight and not particularly well scripted comedy of old age that was easily saved by the quality of its cast, including Bernard Hill, Virginia McKenna, Una Stubbs, Simon Callow, Alun Armstrong and Phil Davis. Light-hearted but fun nonetheless; and “Our Kind Of Traitor“, an adaptation of a John Le Carre story where a couple find themselves lured into a Russian oligarch’s plans to defect are soon positioned between the Russian Mafia and the British Secret Service, neither of whom they can trust. Starring Ewan McGregor, Naomie Harris, Damian Lewis and the excellent Stellan Skarsgård, the cast brings dramatic heft to a story that may try credibility but is, nonetheless, a thoroughly compelling watch. A little clunky, but very entertaining.