Mark Steel Brings Cancer Battle to the Comedy Stage
The Radio 4 favourite turns his fight into a sharp and very funny new tour.
When Mark Steel was told he likely had throat cancer that had spread into the lymph glands, he held the consultant’s hand and looked to the heavens “like a South American footballer after scoring a goal.” He later described it as one of the happiest moments of his life.
His new tour, The Leopard in My House, pulls that thread all the way through. It follows his experience with cancer, from diagnosis to treatment and everything ridiculous in between. It’s not a TED talk. It’s Mark Steel in full form: political, personal and deeply daft in places. The Leopard in My House comes to Aberdeen’s Lemon Tree on Thursday, 23 October.
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Finding humour in the difficult bits
A throat cancer diagnosis hits hard when your job depends on your voice. But through treatment, he kept writing, performing and taking notes. Now he’s turning all of it into something live, strange and very him.
The show winds through hospitals, awkward conversations and all the ways people try (and fail) to be reassuring. It’s about the NHS, fear, ageing, and the surreal moments that come with serious illness. There’s also a leopard. Sort of.
Still angry, still sharp
He hasn’t mellowed. If anything, it’s sharpened his edge. The politics are still there, woven into stories about hospitals and hospital food. Still furious. Still funny. His recent work, including the podcast What The F** Is Going On…?*, leans into the personal as much as the political. This show does the same, just with more radiotherapy and fewer headlines.
Most people wouldn’t mine a cancer diagnosis for material. But Steel’s always drawn comedy from the sharp end. This time, the stakes were higher. The punchlines still land.
The Leopard in My House comes to the Lemon Tree on Thursday, 23 October. Tickets are available from Aberdeen Performing Arts.