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020 8914 8966
Mark Stephen is a BBC Broadcaster, Producer, After-dinner Speaker, Burns Performer, MC and Conference Chairman.
He is a graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama – now known as the Scottish Conservatoire. In 2016 Mark became a Fellow of the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. He was particularly delighted with this as it put him on the same list as Livingstone and Shackleton. He fully accepts that he might not deserve that distinction but he’s not giving it back.
For a number of years Mark Stephen has been President of the Walking for health charity Paths for All. The charity operates Scotland wide and has an annual operating budget of over £10 million.
Mark produced BBC Radio Scotland’s outdoor magazine programme Out of Doors for many years and he has been presenting it since 2002. Year round it covers all of Scotland talking about anything and everything that happens outdoors. Aside from broadcasting Mark wouldn’t claim to be an expert in anything much but this job in particular has given him an unusually broad overview of a whole range of subjects relating to Scotland, it’s people and the land.
He presented a daily programme called The Scottish Connection for three and a half years. This was in the run up to the devolved Scottish Parliament and looked at Scottish identity, culture, heritage and our links to Scots around the World.
Mark currently presents a Social History series for BBC Radio Scotland called Our Story. He does 12 programmes a year. Past programmes have been about the story behind a box of love letters that were found up an Angus Glen, the Burning of the Clavie at Burghead and the Atomickers in Dounreay. Also the work of the Glasgow Humane Society on the River Clyde and the Edinburgh International Festival.
For the last couple of years he has MC’d the Beechgrove Garden Question Time Roadshows for Tern TV and the BBC. He used to produce and present Radio Scotland’s gardening phone-in The Beechgrove Potting Shed so he already knew a lot of the gardeners and could remember enough about gardening not to look totally daft.
Mark also produced and presented programmes and series for BBC Radios 4 and 5 and has voiced television programmes for BBC One, Channel 4 and BBC Scotland. He has covered world faiths and the natural world in Scotland. The last one he did was Dead Man Cycling. This was about Paralympian David Smith’s remarkable recovery from major surgery to cycle all the routes on Mont Ventou in one day.
Between daily and weekly programmes, various series and stand-alones the number of programmes Mark Stephen has done for the BBC runs in to the thousands. His work has taken him to 18 countries around the world and 4 continents. He has stood in medieval rock-hewn churches in Ethiopia, chased a hippo in Malawi, visited temples and shrines in Japan and India. Also, he lugged tranquilised lions about South Africa – He has loved nearly all of it.
Robert Burns:
A total Burns enthusiast, in 1996 Mark wrote and produced a one-hour musical drama for BBC Radio 2 called Burns, a Dram and the Truth. In 2014 in the run up to the Scottish Independence Referendum Mark co-wrote and performed a stage play with Actress/Folk-singer Gill Bowman. It was called, Robert Burns Votes for Scotland. The play previewed on STV, Channel 4, The Scotsman and The Herald. Basically everybody except the BBC who were worried that he might have gone political.
Mark has performed in and produced Burns Suppers for the last 30 years. He has done pretty well everything except the Reply to the Toast to the Lassies. Jim McColl kindly said, he does the best Tam O’Shanter he’s ever seen.
MC-ing and Chairing events:
Mark MC’d a celebration for the Queen’s 60th Jubilee at Balmoral. This was in front of HM the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, Princes Charles and Prince Edward. This followed on from several charity events he did for the Prince of Wales. He was at Holyrood Palace, Fyvie Castle and Dumfries House for these.
Mark has MC’d two Opening concerts at Celtic Connections. He also did the big opening concert on Glasgow Green for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
Since 2011 Mark has chaired over 50 conferences. He has covered topics as diverse as Cyber-Security; Land Reform; Scottish Policing and Digital Scotland. Also, Renewable Energy, NE Oil Summit and Civil Engineering. He freely admits he is an expert in none of these things. Mark listens very carefully to what’s said and bases his questions accordingly. Mark says, “Conferences are like live programmes – you have to keep things going and keep things to time. Make sure everybody gets a fair say and step in and take control when things go wrong. Not being an expert actually helps. It means I can ask any question I like and don’t assume knowledge on the part of the audience”.
Mark chaired the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association conference in 2014 in Glasgow. He also did the follow on Public Media Alliance conference in Montreal in 2016.
He completed a 2 day conference for the Scottish Government – Scotland and the New North. This was an Arctic Circle Forum with speakers and delegates from 14 countries attending.
Mark has also chaired conferences on HS&E for Oil companies – Nexen and Taqa and done Economic Forums for regional councils and development organisations.
Mark presents Out of Doors with his friend and colleague Euan McIlwraith. They have a very similar sense of humour and have ended up performing at several national events.
For 10 years or so, Mark was fortunate to team up with renowned fisherman Ally Gowans. This was to officially open the Salmon Fishing Season on the River Tay at Kenmore. ( Not so much Little and Large, more Large and Large … ) Sadly the event is no more but it was one of Mark’s favourite activities in the year. They would say a few words to the crowds in the Square, march down to the river bank behind the Pipe Band, bless the river, do the first cast and then let the real fisherman have at it.
The Flynn brothers who used to own the hotel always organised a dinner in the evening. It featured a hugely successful charity auction. The success of the auction owed a lot less to Mark’s skills as an auctioneer and much more to the Flynn’s habit of mercilessly putting the squeeze on their international business partners.
Mark is married to Jean, they have two daughters. They live on their smallholding in rural Aberdeenshire. Jean works as an instructor for the Riding for the Disabled Association. Because of that Mark was happy to speak at their National AGM when it came to Scotland for the very first time. As he says the opportunity to take the mickey out of 300 horsey wifies was too good to miss.
