Mark Steel will be talking about culture and Selby when he appears in the town. as he tells Charles Hutchinson.

STEEL and coal unite in North Yorkshire at the opening event of the new Selby Town Hall arts programme.

Over the next three months, the town hall will be transformed into an arts centre two or three times a week in a joint initiative between Selby District and Selby Town Councils and the Arts Council of England. First into the new lion's den in the mining town will be BBC Radio 4 comedian and writer Mark Steel.

Mark had been unaware of the significance of this event until the Evening Press let him know.

"It does feel like an honour, doing the first show. You treat it as just another show in one respect, but then none of them is just another show. Like when I went to Falmouth last weekend; the bits they'll remember will be the ones that were local to them," he says.

"It's not just a question of reading the local paper, but mucking about with Falmouth things and Cornish things, like the three things that I knew about Falmouth.

"At Selby Town Hall, I'll be referring to it being the first ever gig there and I'll talk about the councils 'taking culture to Selby'."

Noted for the forthright political content of his stand-up shows, Mark will mention the state of the coal-mining industry too. "Now there are probably more acupuncturists and ball jugglers than miners... which probably makes mining an elite industry," he says, drily.

"I'll mention mining in one of my general rants. In Falmouth, the one they liked most was the one about the Royal Family. They told me that one was really cathartic!"

While on the subject of cathartic experiences, Mark is thriving on his return to the live circuit on a tour that will bring him back to Yorkshire for more comic fireworks on November 5 at the Leeds City Varieties Music Hall.

"Yeah, I'm enjoying it, especially because I've been doing the very opposite of these shows for the last nine months, making a television series for BBC4."

Entitled The Mark Steel Lecture, the series will involve Mark holding forth on Lord Byron, Karl Marx, Sigmund Freud, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Aristotle.

"When you do a TV series, you write the script with your mate, then it goes through meetings where they decide who's going to do it, where you're going to do it, what costumes, what props, and you start thinking 'Oh, I don't know, is that line a joke or not?". But it was fun to do," he says. "The thing with this series is because all the subjects are quite pompous, they're very funny."

Yet the instant impact of a live show remains a mighty magnet to him. "There is something very glorious about turning up at a place and there's just a mike; that's very compelling. It's like a drug, and it's definitely more of a drug than TV."

Mark Steel plays Selby Town Hall on Saturday, September 27; doors open at 7.30pm. Tickets: £10, available in advance from Selby Town Hall on 01757 708449 or Abbey Leisure Centre, 01757 213758.

Ten Things You Didn't Know... about Mark Sturdy and his first book

1. Who is Mark Sturdy?

Mark, 24, is a freelance music writer, from North Deighton, near Wetherby. Omnibus Press has just published his first book, Truth And Beauty, The Story Of Pulp (paperback, £14.95), a labour of love that involved six years of research on Jarvis Cocker's pop survivors. Mark was born in North Yorkshire in 1978, a few weeks before fellow Yorkshiremen Pulp were first formed in Sheffield.

2. Why did he chose Pulp for his first biography?

"I decided to write a book about Pulp firstly because they were my favourite band, and secondly because they seemed to be the perfect subject for a biography," he says. "They have a long, strange history, and one that it seemed hadn't been properly documented before."

3. What does he mean by "strange history"?

"The story of what's happened to Pulp since they made it is fairly well-known, but there was a period of more than a decade before that when they were a working band, doing interesting stuff, but very much languishing in obscurity. Odd facts were known about that pre-fame period, but on the whole it was an untold story until I wrote my book."

4. Mark's theory on why no one has attempted a comprehensive study of one of the defining bands of Britpop is:

"Most successful bands generally have a year or two of slogging around in obscurity before hitting the big time, so their pre-fame period isn't normally too much of a challenge to research. In Pulp's case, there was 15 years' worth of stuff to dig up, which is a little more daunting!"

5. York label Red Rhino released Pulp's early material, so was York important in Pulp's history?

"Not very, as far as I can tell! Pulp themselves didn't actually get around to playing York till 2001 at the Barbican. The Red Rhino connection came about as a result of Pulp's then-manager, Tony Perrin, having worked with Red Rhino in their capacity of being one of the largest independent distributors of the time," says Mark.

"The 'It' album was recorded independently and then taken by Perrin to Tony K, head of Red Rhino, who liked it and agreed to release it. I interviewed Tony K for the book and he only has very vague memories of Pulp - they were just one of the dozens of bands he worked with at the time."

6. Why is the book called Truth & Beauty?

"The title is a quote from an early song called The Will To Power, but I think it's also been a bit of a Pulp catchphrase over the years: it's cropped up in quite a few interviews, and some people might remember an ad campaign circa '95 that consisted of a series of posters saying thinks like 'You can't buy truth'... 'You can't buy beauty'... 'But you can buy PULP - Common People'."

7. Any other reasons?

"It was a nice obscure reference, plus I think it kind of reflects what Pulp have tried to do over the years: make music that's both true (ie reflecting real life) and beautiful. And, of course, it reflects what I tried to do in the book: get to the truth of Pulp's story, and maybe see what beauty there is to be found there."

8. Which rock biography and biographer does Mark most admire and why?

"My favourite rock book is Head On, Julian Cope's memoir of punk and his time with The Teardrop Explodes. I thought that was brilliant - it's honest, funny and insightful, and reflects the time in a really unique way."

9. Is he planning another book?

"No more books for now," he says. "I spent six years on this one, so I'd like to do other things for a while. My main project at the moment is as editor of Sandman, which is a new free music magazine covering the Leeds area, to be launched at the end of this month."

10. What are Mark's odds on Pulp coming out of semi-retirement?

"Who knows! Apparently they're having a meeting this month to discuss what they're going to do next, if anything, so we'll see..."

Updated: 08:43 Friday, September 26, 2003