Derry/Londonderry

Mark Steel's in Town

Mark Steel returns to Radio 4 for a fifth series of the award winning show that travels around the country, researching the history, heritage and culture of six towns that have nothing in common but their uniqueness, and does a bespoke evening of comedy in each one.

As every high street slowly morphs into a replica of the next, Mark Steel's in Town celebrates the parochial, the local and the unusual. From Corby's rivalry with Kettering to the word you can't say in Portland, the show has taken in the idiosyncrasies of towns up and down the country, from Kirkwall to Penzance, from Holyhead to Bungay.

This edition comes from Derry/Londonderry in County Londonderry, Northern Ireland, where the problems start with deciding which name to actually use. Mark also looks at the somewhat contentious history of the city, the impact of being the 2013 City of Culture, the local dialect, and the new bridge that's got everyone talking in this jam-packed half-hour show. (It would have been quicker, but he used the local trains.) From January 2014.

Written and performed by ... Mark Steel Additional material by ... Pete Sinclair Production co-ordinator ... Trudi Stevens Producer ... Ed Morrish.