WITH a sell-out show in Dorchester next week and a trip to Poole next month, comedian Mark Steel tells Joanna Davis why he’s happy to be Back in Town Again.

MARK Steel is in front of his computer scribbling down notes while I reel off everything I know about Dorchester.

Normally my interviews work the other way round, I’m thinking, as I struggle to recall a potted history of the county town, full of fascinating facts Mark needs to know. I think frantically..... of the Roman walls, Charles Street.... and Alistair Chisholm.

The reason for this impromptu ‘thought shower’ is that the premise of Mark Steel’s new tour is to talk and tell jokes about the town he is in – hence the name Back in Town Again.

He pledges to discover ‘what makes towns ridiculous’.

And my interview is serving as a good research piece for the Dorchester leg.

“Alistair Chisholm is like Mr Dorchester – he’s the town crier, a councillor and he’s always in our newspaper,” I tell him.

This instantly resonates with Mark, who said whichever venue he plays at, there’s always one person whom everyone in the audience knows.

He said: “Even in London people identify with their little patch.

“In Finchley, everyone there knew a bloke called Horace.

“He would always say to anyone he passed in the street: ‘Good day to you, madam’, but unfortunately he’d have a few off days when it would be interspersed with swearing and rude words.

“It’s strange how the show always gets people in the audience talking to each other.

“In Bristol someone started talking about a woman and then the other person who was talking about a woman realised it was the same woman because they both said she dressed up as a bride.”

Mark has presented the BAFTA nominated Mark Steel Lectures for BBC2 and is a regular on BBC One’s Have I Got News For You and Radio 4’s Newsquiz.

He has also appeared on BBC2’s QI and Room 101.

He’s written several acclaimed books, including Reasons To Be Cheerful and What’s Going On.

Mark also presents a stand-up comedy show on Radio 4 called Mark Steel’s in Town.

He said: “This is the second time I’ve toured it. Maybe I should try and do something different but I really enjoy doing it.

“I’m about to start a sixth series of it for Radio 4.”

Mark, who writes a regular column in The Independent, recently visited Bridport as part of the tour.

He said: “When I was in Bridport the subject of Dorchester cropped up – this caused some debate in the audience.

“I was asking if there were rivals of Bridport and someone suggested Lyme Regis.

“Someone else suggested Exeter. That was quite a funny moment because there was some question about whether people in Exeter even knew if Bridport existed!”

Bridport and Lyme Regis News:

One of Mark’s radio broadcasts explored the Isle of Portland.

“It’s a very peculiar place,” he said.

“I love the term Kimberlin and that you need to have lived there for years and years to be properly from the island.”

Social media has proved helpful for Mark in his quest to hear the ‘non-Wikipedia’ history of the towns he is touring.

He said: “The general view of social media is that it’s where people are horrible and nasty and there is a fair bit of that.

“Mostly I put messages on there saying: ‘Can anyone tell me about such and such a town?’ and I get loads of really funny replies and a real sense of the place.

“If I get 200 people replying to me, as many as 100 might mention the same couple of things about a town.

“I had some funny things mentioned about Bridport. I was told that if a sheep lies on its back for long enough then it explodes.

“Of course Bridport is famous for rope making. I read a couple of books where it says that’s why the town centre streets are so wide, because they’d stretch the rope across it to dry it out.

“Someone said: ‘Surely it would have been simpler to stretch it out lengthways?’ “I also heard a lot about the hat shop in Bridport.

“And when I was in Bridport I went upstairs in the museum and there was a bloke dressed in chain mail.

“He said to me: ‘Hello, I represent the Romans who occupied Warden Hill for 50 years.’ He said they were pretty fearsome.

“It was a very strange conversation to have. I’m sure Dorchester will be just as quirky and interesting, I’m looking forward to it.”

Continuing with my somewhat limited knowledge of Dorchester, telling Mark ‘it’s similar in some ways to Winchester’, he then tells me about his favourite moment on the Winchester leg of the tour.

“After my show in Winchester I was just getting into the car and a man came up to me.

“He said: ‘I’d just like to say, it’s lucky you have all that material about Winchester and you’re actually in Winchester!

“I said to him: ‘I’m going to Newcastle next and I don’t know how they’re going to find all the stuff about Alfred the Great and the cathedral.’”

Mark Steel is one of the few commentators who has defended fellow comic Russell Brand, after he was pilloried for Revolution, his book on politics.

He said: “I read so many articles in papers having a go at him.

“There were so many people going: ‘This is not proper political discourse.’ Do you ever wonder why so few people are interested in political ideas?

“I think it’s just snobbery and that winds me up. These critics were like ‘we’re the people who write proper political articles’, but the important thing is that Russell has engaged millions of people with politics.”

l Mark Steel’s Back in Town show in Dorchester on November 28 is sold out. There are still tickets available for his show at Lighthouse, Poole’s Centre for the Arts on December 11.

See lighthousepoole.co.uk