Extreme Rambling pt 2

Fellow comic Mark Steel's reaction to his plan to walk the Israeli West Bank wall

More Mark Thomas videos

One of the few stand-ups still to carry the political standard of alternative comedy, Mark Thomas is essentially an observational comic – only his observations tend to revolve around the crusading anti-corporate, anti-greed investigations he undertakes.

He is best known for his campaigning Channel 4 series, in which he employed, Michael Moore-style, televisual stunts to get his message across. But his work also has a serious side: in one episode he got an Indonesian military chief to admit on camera that their government used torture.

Thomas has said his passion for politics was inherited from his father, a builder and lay preacher at Clapham's Nazarene Church, even if he didn’t inherit his Thatcherite beliefs.

He won a scholarship to Christ's Hospital public school, but he would frequently play truant, often to the theatre, before going on to study at Bretton Hall drama college in Wakefield.

There he began performing his own sketches and shows, doing benefit shows for the miners' strike while still a student. After college he worked for his father by day and did stand-up by night until he could turn pro.

In 1992, his Edinburgh show was nominated for the Perrier award – the same year the fizzy water brand was bought by Nestle, one of the corporations Thomas now campaigns against so vociferously.

Four years later, he launched his strident TV programme, which ran for seven years. To this day he continues to be involved in the political causes that so influence his comedy.

London Storytelling Festival 2011 Closing Gala
Live Review
Leicester Square Theatre

Storytelling can sometimes be seen as comedy’s fey, bookish older brother, brooding alone in the corner as his more popular, charismatic sibling gets all the attention for his ribald tales in the centre of the room. It’s all vacuous showboating, Storytelling mutters, while quietly wishing it was him in the spotlight.

The London Storytelling Festival is the latest of several attempts to make the art more relevant, even if the closing night gala wasn’t helped by a wordy preamble from hosts Sarah Bennetto and Deborah Francis-White about how it’s ‘the oldest artform’, ‘the way we communicate’ and how ‘made me understand who I was, my place in the world and my very existence’.

Thankfully, once the show got busy with the ‘Once upon a times…’ such worthy pretentiousness was largely jettisoned, and the stories were allowed to shine on their own merits.

Opening act Martin Dockery certainly showed how to spin even the most common occurrence into a gripping yarn – a trick the best stand-ups display. This vibrant New Yorker told of a fight with his long-term girlfriend amid the majesty of a Cambodian temple. Delivered with verve and told with wit and insight, he is so engaging and evocative he makes the audience believe they are sharing the sunrise – and the argument – with him.

From the experienced to the novice, with journalist Will Hodgkinson choosing the Leicester Square Theatre for his first try at live storytelling. He’s normally a rock journalist, but here he mulled the idea of tattoos, telling us a factual story about the symbolism of tattoos among the Russian prison population that didn’t always make for easy listening. The delivery occasionally needed a bit of polish, but this was an assured offering on a tough subject.

Phil Kay’s been doing storytelling in his stand-up since before it was recognised as a sub-genre of the current scene. From the profundity of Hodgkinson’s tale, troubadour Kay brought us back to the apparently trivial, regaling us with a tale of hitchhiking across Scotland to buy a car. It’s Kay’s knack for exaggerating minor observations into whole philosophies that makes this relatively minor errand so gripping, and he left us on a high.

For her own story, Francis-White – the comedian who also produced this festival – revealed that she was brought up a Jehovah’s Witness. Thankfully, this whole event wasn’t a ploy for her to sell us copies of the Watchtower, as she’s now reformed, but as a youngster she used to knock on strangers’ doors spreading the word. And should you question the wisdom of sending a teenage girl to do that, your fears will be realised with Francis-White’s yarn. Yet although there’s a menace to the tale , and she tells it with a lightness of touch – while the subject holds an intrinsic fascination because it’s so different to common experiences.

Singer-songwriter Judith Owen was in more clichéd territory when speaking of Los Angeles, where she now lives, being fake and full of desperate would-be stars. She brought out her husband, Simpsons actor Harry Shearer, to accompany her on bass guitar for the ensuing song – although ironically enough for someone known for his voice talents, he wasn’t allowed to speak. At least not yet. Owen has a fine jazz voice, but unimaginative lyrics, which is surely key in a storytelling night. In car-dependent Southern California, it’s not often you find ‘LA’ and ‘pedestrian’ in the same sentence, but it’s probably apt here.

Sarah Bennetto, the festival’s artistic director and curator of her own regular Storytellers’ Club, opening the second half with a yarn that made attending an Arcade Fire gig sond almost as magical and adventurous as a trip to Narnia. Though a comedian, the anecdote wasn’t entertaining rather than funny, but it was warmly told.

Next up was Mark Thomas, who was nothing short of astounding. After a couple of jokey reminiscences about the early days of alternative cabaret, he started telling us about his dad – a full-on rough, but hard-grafting working-class Methodist, Thatcherite builder from South London – and the difficult relationship he has with him. This has been a fertile ground for comics of late, most notably Russell Kane, but it’s never been covered as expertly as this. This powerful story was packed full of emotion, taking the audience on an incredible ride through the decades and, more significantly, the contradictory, complex feelings he had for this brusque character.

Always surprising as it deftly nipped between the moving and the funnys this was a ride that left the audience drained in the best possible way, having come through an amazing tale. Absolutely superlative stuff.

The story ended with a moral about joys money can’t buy, so it was rather unfortunate that Owen was reintroduced with the words: ‘And after the show she will be autographing CDs – if you buy them, of course.’ That Simpsons pay settlement must have hit the Shearer household harder than reported. Again, her contribution, setting up a song about women waiting ashore for their sea-faring men amid dreadful storms, was platitudinous (‘inside all of us is something that means the worst possible things can be turned around’) and the track itself soporific.

To headline, hubby Shearer returned, but despite his fame was, unfortunately, one of the weaker links in the line-up, with stories that were low on drama – and strong endings. Being taken to a Tijuana strip club was rather flat, and the story of submitting a lightweight lifestyle piece to Newsweek magazine in his youth only to find the introduction had been twisted to suit the publication’s agenda will come as no surprise in the nation that brought us the Daily Mail, Daily Express, The Sun, News Of The World, the Daily Mirror, the Sunday Sport….

But that Mark Thomas, he was fantastic.

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Certainly one of the loudest, wittiest, bravest acts around.

Michael Monkhouse, December 2011

I saw Mark Thomas at the Edinburgh Fringe fest, it was an excellent show, political and funny

Sacha, August 2011

Where could anyone extract any humour from what is potentially tedious subject matter and highly political/religious topic? Mark with his schoolboy enthusiasm for his theme brought it to life in his inimitable personal informative manner that the public have come to know. Like a Jack Russell terrier pursuing its prey, Mark also grabs his subject matter by the "scruff of the neck" and shakes the life out of it! be it good or bad. On a critical note, Mark too much gesticulating arm movements at the start of the evening. Thankfully they became less pronounced as the night went on. Less Dr Magnus Pike/Combine Harvester impression/ University lecturer Audience left both entertained, but more importantly enlightened to what's happening between these nations from a layman's perspective.

Douglas Thomson, June 2011

I went to Primary School with Mark, being in the same class for 5 years! His party trick then was to recite the beginning of the four gospels. Must have been his father's influence! Good on you, Mark!

Chris Ivory, March 2010

The guy's brilliant, and makes you think twice about global capitalism, and companies who manufacture weapons. These companies who help assist death and murder must be shown up for what they are. I, if I was investing money would never have anything to do with British Aerospace, as they have been found to make torture equipment.

Ralph Lawren, August 2007

Saw him at The Shaftesbury Theatre two weeks ago. Brilliant live.

Sarah Davis, April 2007

The man is a genius

Lynda Coates, November 2006

Just very very very funny

Kenny, August 2006

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