{"id":475612,"date":"2026-05-31T03:56:26","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T03:56:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/475612\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T03:56:26","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T03:56:26","slug":"smoggie-queens-actor-hails-forgotten-talent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/475612\/","title":{"rendered":"Smoggie Queens actor hails &#8216;forgotten&#8217; talent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Teesside actor said the return of the award-winning comedy series Smoggie Queens demonstrates the &#8221;amazing creative talent &#8221; of the region.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Benton, star of multiple feature films and television dramas, said it was a &#8221;dream come true&#8221; to return for another series filming in his home town of Middlesbrough.<\/p>\n<p>He said: &#8221;I always thought Teesside was overlooked. It was like there was a creative wasteland from York to Newcastle and that didn&#8217;t really change until Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer came.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The majority of actors and filming crew working on the show are from the North East.<\/p>\n<p>Benton&#8217;s career went from Youth Theatre on Teesside to RADA and then on to the Royal Shakespeare Company.<\/p>\n<p>Benton said: &#8221;Years ago you had to leave the region to find TV work, but that&#8217;s no longer the case.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>During filming for one scene he said he turned to fellow-actor Michael Hodgson and said: &#8220;Can you believe we were together at Kirby College at 16?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Now all these years later we&#8217;re back home filming in Middlesbrough &#8211; I just thank my lucky stars.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It was written by RTS winner and BAFTA nominated Phil Dunning, another Middlesbrough native.<\/p>\n<p>He promised the new series was &#8221;bigger, bolder and even madder&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"Mark Benton is smiling broadly and sitting down against a blurred but colourful poster of the show. He has short hair and a grey beard and is wearing glasses.\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"960\" height=\"640\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"standard-img w-full w-full h-auto\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/aol_bbc_articles_618\/38e8e6993678ce3acb6334126bfa923c.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Mark Benton said people often overlooked the &#8220;amazing creative talent&#8221; of the North East<\/p>\n<p>Dunning said he was delighted so many of the cast and crew had returned for the new series.<\/p>\n<p>&#8221;That&#8217;s really important because we want people from the North East to be the ones that benefit,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I know it feels really cheesy but we&#8217;re like a family and get on so well.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>New additions to the show include BAFTA winning Monica Dolan and former football manager Chris Kamara and pundit Jeff Stelling.<\/p>\n<p>Dunning said he was amazed they were able to attract such big names.<\/p>\n<p>&#8221; I was so delighted when those guys said yes, they&#8217;re unbelievable.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We do a football episode and I really wanted them in it &#8211; they&#8217;re Boro legends.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Smoggie Queens, series two, is available on BBCiPlayer and BBC Three on 14 May.<\/p>\n<p>Follow BBC Tees on <a data-ylk=\"slk:X;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/BBCNEandCumbria\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">X<\/a>, <a data-ylk=\"slk:Facebook;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bbcnortheast\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>, <a data-ylk=\"slk:Nextdoor;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" href=\"https:\/\/bbc.in\/3yyMYUI\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Nextdoor<\/a> and <a data-ylk=\"slk:Instagram;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/bbcneandcumbria\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Related stories<script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Teesside actor said the return of the award-winning comedy series Smoggie Queens demonstrates the &#8221;amazing creative talent&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":475613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[205085,93,61,60,205084,195352,205088,282,205086,205087],"class_list":["post-475612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-creative-talent","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mark-benton","tag-middlesbrough","tag-teesside","tag-tv","tag-vic-reeves-and-bob-mortimer","tag-youth-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=475612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/475612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=475612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=475612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=475612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}