IT’s hardly your average response: “The consultant had told me he was confident I had throat cancer that had spread into the lymph glands. Joyfully, I held his hand, and looked up to the heavens like a South American footballer after scoring a goal. It was one of the happiest moments of my life.”

But then Mark Steel is no ordinary cancer patient. Join the multi award-winning, BAFTA-nominated writer and comedian as his new tour, The Leopard in My House, comes to Taunton Brewhouse on Thursday 25th September and Bridport’s Electric Palace on Friday 26th, Weston-super-Mare Playhouse on Sunday 28th, and Poole Lighthouse on 29th November.

The theme of the show is Mark’s battle with throat cancer – a battle he is winning (thankfully) and which only his rapier wit could fashion a comedy tour show out of.

Cancer has done nothing to dull Mark’s acute political observations or quash his “frankly bonkers” energy: you will laugh, you will cry, but you’ll laugh again … and again … and again. The Leopard in My House is proof that this leftie, working-class, Radio 4 favourite truly deserves his place in the UK comedy pantheon.

Mark Steel is best known for his critically-acclaimed BBC Radio 4 show Mark Steel’s in Town (now in its 13th series), as well as his hit podcast What The F*** Is Going On…?. He has presented the BAFTA-nominated Mark Steel Lectures for BBC Two and is a regular on BBC One’s Have I Got News for You and BBC Radio 4’s The News Quiz. He has also written several acclaimed books, including an adaptation of his stand-up show Who Do I Think I Am? for Audible.