Mark Steel, BBC Four's "Comedy Prophet" returns with his award-winning series
Mark Steel Lectures Author, columnist and stand-up comic Mark Steel returns to BBC Four with the third series of his award-winning programme, Mark Steel Lectures. BAFTA-nominated in 2004 for best comedy programme, the critically acclaimed series mischievously delves into the lives and achievements of famous historical figures. Mixing historical lecture with his unique brand of humour, Steel gives us his own provocative and passionate interpretation of what made these famous people tick - revealing secrets and quirky insights that would have been tabloid scandals and fodder for gossip columnists in the modern era. Having given Aristotle, Byron, Darwin, Freud, Marx, Newton, Beethoven, Da Vinci, Einstein, Paine, Pankhurst and Shelly the ‘Mark Steel treatment’ in the first two series, he now turns his eye to Che Guevara, Charlie Chaplin, Oliver Cromwell, Harriet Tubman, Rene Descartes and Geoffrey Chaucer. Using actors, locations and off-beat reconstructions he illuminates the hidden side of these legendary characters and comes to his own unique conclusions about their motivations, ambitions, appeal and achievements. Based on the long-running Radio 4 show, the first series won Steel a Royal Television Society nomination for Best Entertainment Performance and the second series won the Japan Prize for Educational Television. This third series marks an established association with The Open University, who see Mark Steel (who does all his own research) as an inspiration and role model for enthusiastic, self-starting learners attracted to the OU. For detailed synopses of the programmes click on the word document (right). TX: From Thursday 23 February 2006, 11pm, BBC Four, repeated Saturdays at 9pm, BBC Four. Programme 1 - Oliver Cromwell Cromwell was a landowner’s son from East Anglia who did the unthinkable: from a position of relative obscurity, he rose to mount a successful challenge to the accepted political order, resulting in the English Civil War. Programme 2 – Charlie Chaplin Chaplin was one of the 20th century’s greatest and richest rebels. From austere beginnings in the squalid streets and workhouses of South London, he rose to become one of the most famous faces in the world. Programme 3 - Rene Descartes Descartes was the man responsible for the catchphrase ‘I think therefore I am’. Born into the lower ranks of the French nobility in 1596, he made it his business never to get up before noon, he smoked tobacco that was cut with dope and did all his serious thinking whilst sitting in an oven. Programme 4 - Geoffrey Chaucer Mark Steel charts Chaucer’s course through history, his appointments to the royal household, his kidnapping in France, his marrying into the aristocracy, and how through the Canterbury Tales he bequeathed to us the first written sign of an England that we’d recognise today. Programme 5 - Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman, described widely as the ‘Moses of her people’ was instrumental in the efforts to abolish slavery in mid 19th Century America. Programme 6 - Che Guevara In the last of this current series, writer and broadcaster Mark Steel travels to South America and turns his attentions to the life and revolutionary times of Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara, a man who started out on a motorcycle holiday, only to end up being made Foreign Minister of Cuba. Mark Steel is recognised as BBC Four’s foremost “comedy prophet” – a premiere matchmaker of fact and funnies; authoritative, entertaining, engaging and passionate. He does all his own research and has made himself an expert on the French Revolution as well as the lives of the two dozen or so subjects of his radio and TV series. Not bad for someone who was expelled from school at 15. He is the award-winning author of Reasons to be Cheerful and Vive La Revolution. He has made four series of The Mark Steel Solution and The Mark Steel Lectures for BBC Radio 4 and has written regularly for various national newspapers and magazines. He is a well-known stand-up comedian, having performed on the comedy circuit since 1983. He makes regular appearances on QI and Have I Got News For You, as well as numerous radio guest appearances. Editor’s Notes Mark Steel Lectures is an Open University commissioned co-production with the BBC, produced by Phil Bowker, directed by Becky Martin and written by Mark Steel, James Serafinowicz & Pete Sinclair. The executive producers are Mob Dar, Creative Head, New Comedy and Emma De’Ath for the Open University. The Open University and BBC have been in partnership for over 30 years providing educational programming to a mass audience. In recent times this partnership has evolved from late night programming for delivering courses to peak time programmes with a broad appeal to encourage wider participation in learning. Resources Related courses: |
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