He romped through Borehamwood last year and now Mark Steel is back in north London to uncover the funny side of Finchley.

The 53-year-old will be at artsdepot next week with show Mark Steel’s In Town, an evening ridiculing the quirks and foibles of the area.

He says: “The idea is that I go to a town and try to make everybody laugh uproariously while I’m being thoroughly rude about it.

“I’m on the fifth series and just getting into Derry at the moment, so it is quite possible I won’t survive that and the rest will be cancelled because I’ll be getting new knee caps put in.“

“So the series goes all across the UK then?“ I ask.

“Well it wouldn’t work if I just did it in one place,“ replies Mark.

Cue awkward silence, before I quickly ask if he’s ever been given any flack by an audience?

“I haven’t done yet. I always think I’m going to.

“If you just come into a place and start being rude about it then people will get annoyed, but if you do enough research on the place people let you get away with anything really.“

So has he been feverishly researching Finchley?

“No not yet, as soon as I get back from Ireland I shall be looking at the Finchley Times. There is one famous resident I’m told and she might get a mention,“ says the famously left-wing comedian.

Margaret Thatcher by any chance?

So what inspired the creation of the show?

“Everywhere is just so brilliantly unique. Everywhere looks the same on the surface now with multi-storey car parks and that, but underneath people have a good sense of what they are.

“It’s just fun to be funny about somewhere.“

The only way we’ll discover what gems he unearths about Finchley is by going along to his show.

But Mark better be on form when he comes, Monty Python’s sketch, The Funniest Joke in the World, is set in Finchley and famed funnyman Spike Milligan was president of the Finchley Society, so there’s quite a comedy legacy to follow.

  • artsdepot, Nether Street, Tally Ho Corner, North Finchley, Friday, November 22, 8pm. Details: 020 8369 5454, artsdepot.co.uk