Comic tells Desert Island Discs about his cancer treatment and finding his birth parents

Mark Steel tells the story of discovering his birth family on today’s Desert Island Discs,  describing it as ‘like something out of Netflix’.

The comedian – who was given the all-clear from his throat cancer in May – joined Lauren Laverne, who has also just received the same good news about her cancer.

Today’s show was recorded before Laverne, 46, went on leave to recover from the disease this summer. 

Steel told her that following his treatment, ‘I'm absolutely fine. I’ve probably got less reason to think I’ve got worries about cancer than anyone who hasn’t been through this treatment because now I’m being scanned regularly,

‘The last scan showed there was absolutely nothing to worry about at all. So really a very, very lovely outcome for me.

‘It was quite brutal, the treatment – chemo and radiotherapy and an operation. That battered everything between the ears and the threat really…  That was a tricky nine months.’

Steel also told Lavern  the story of seeking his genetic parents that has previously been the subject of his stand-up show Who Do I Think I Am?

Taking on the quest in 1995 when becoming a father himself – his son Elliot  is also a comic, and he has daughter, Eloise – and found out that his mother, Francis, was living in Rimini, Italy. 

He wrote her a letter but heard nothing back but an intermediary tracked her down on the phone and found she was ‘rather cross’ at being found.

But after asking after Mark’s family, job and politics – getting the reply ‘I believe he’s on the left – she shared the details of his birth father:  Joe Dwek, a multi-millionaire backgammon player.

Steel discovered that he had been conceived during a weekend fling and that Dwek had paid for Francis to have an abortion, which she never went through with.

At their first meeting, Steel joked: ‘Incidentally, I’m in touch with the family, so if you want the money back, that they clearly owe you for the abortion, I can ask if they’ve got it?’

He added: ‘It was bad joke wasn’t it?’ His dad replied:  ‘Yeah.’

‘That was that,’ he tells Lavern on today’s show. "We got an alright, he was really sweet."

Steel’s tracks included The Clash’s Janie Jones, Into My Arms by Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, and Rage Against the Machine’s Killing In The Name.

He said his luxury item would be a piano – admitting that he didn’t play well – and his books would be a Wisden cricket almanac.

Listen to the episode here.

Published: 1 Dec 2024