On stage, Mark Thomas is like a human machine gun – the jokes, the one-liners, the statistics, the satire…it’s all fired off like bullets. You worry that he will burst into flames. You worry that he will have a heart attack. His father was a lay preacher and Mark, his hands always waving in a gesture, belts out a message.
Now he says he’s skint. The award-winning play England and Son – written by Ed Edwards for Mark Thomas and basically about drug addiction – got taken to Australia and now there is a possibility of New York.
It’s a magnificent one-man show, except you think you have seen a whole cast of people.
He is a great character actor – but it costs a lot to stage theatre these days he says. “I have no money”.
So, he’s back on the road doing what he describes as “pure stand-up” in a new show called Gaffa Tapes.
It reaches Cambridge Junction on Thursday, October 31.
Every show will be different he says. This time, there is no central theme.
It won’t be like Check Up which marked the 70th anniversary of The Health Service with a critical look what successive governments had done to it, or Walking the Wall in 2011, where he walked the wall between Palestine and Israel, spending time with both Palestinians and Israelis.
That show, where he and managed a stupendously fine balance between the two peoples, was funded by the Metropolitan Police.
He told the audience: “Yes I was as surprised as you are.” What actually happened was that he was stopped and searched by the police in error, after he had spoken an anti-arms rally. He sued them, received £1,200 and used it to fund the project.
The Metropolitan Police logo is on the DVD.
The new show won’t be like that or like Showtime from the Frontline, which he toured in 2018 with two comics from the Jenin Refugee Camp on the West Bank where he and they had set-up a comedy workshop.
This time, the show will be about what he thinks is going on in the world and what is going on with him. “I am the theme”.
This includes how he found new love at the age of 61, after, as he says, “My marriage fell apart.” He was married to his wife, Jenny for 28 years.
His new partner is an old friend he says. “I fell in love. I wasn’t expecting it and it’s lovely.”
So, is she an actor, a comic, an investigative journalist, an author? Because he is all of these things.
One of his books is called As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela – an investigation into the arms trade.
That phrase was actually used to sell a type of weapon. Some of the ironies are actually funny. The book was commended by a Parliamentary committee for its undercover research.
His occupations are listed as Comedian, Activist, Presenter, Journalist, Columnist.
“No, she is none of those things. She is a sane person.” We concur that sometimes we need a sane person in our lives.
Especially when there is so little sanity out there in the world. He’s never had much time for Keir Starmer’s Labour Party – what does he think of them in government?
“Starmer accepting £100,000 worth of Arsenal tickets, (clothes and free gifts) while means testing pensioners’ winter fuel allowance and refusing to lift the two-child cap on child benefit is not a good look.
“They are vacillating on workers’ rights; they are vacillating on nationalising the railways. They are a Heathite, load of shite.”
He has travelled to Palestine many times – and is a fund-raiser for IMET 2000, the International Medical Education Trust – a charity which trains doctors and surgeons working in Palestine.
What has he to say about the Middle East?
The IMET base in Gaza has been bombed twice, he says. What would he have done if he were the Israeli government after the Hamas attack on October 7?
“I would have done it before October 7. I would have ended the apartheid state. I would have asked the Palestinians how and where they want to live.”
At some stage, he says, people have to talk.
His activism and campaigns are legion and legendary.
Among other campaigns, he is the chairman of the Ilisu Dam Campaign, which has successfully blocked the development of a hydroelectric dam in Turkey which campaigners say will displace 79,000 people.
He has worked with War on Want in India; investigated human rights violations in Colombia where trade unions are targeted by a militia allegedly controlled by government. In this country, he organised protests against The Serious Organised Crime and Police Act 2005, which prevents demonstrations within Parliament Square without police approval.
In 2008, he was given an honorary doctorate by the University of Bradford (the first university in Britain to have a department of peace studies founded in 1973) for his services to peace for his work as a comedian, political activist, presenter and investigative journalist – especially for his campaign on the ethics of the arms trade.
He’s surely a fascinating dinner guest.
He says in his Walking the Wall show (also called Extreme Rambling) that he was glad when he and his photographer companion were soon arrested by an Israeli soldier. Because otherwise: “How would it go down at a North London dinner party if I said they respected my rights.”
He is the son of a builder, and he worked on building sites early in his career. He is also a public schoolboy.
He won a scholarship to Christ’s Hospital in Sussex. It’s a school dating back to the 16th century, set up by Edward VI in 1552 and the uniform has hardly altered since Tudor times. Provided to all pupils free of charge, it is a long blue coat, belted at the waist, worn with matching knee breeches, long yellow socks and a white neck band (or cravat).
The girls wear the same coat with a matching skirt.
So, what was it like going there? But it’s the end of our interview. He has a lot of press to speak to, he has been buzzed to take the next call.
All he says is: “I know five teachers from the school who are currently in jail.”
Mark Thomas: Gaffa Tapes is at Cambridge Junction on Thursday, October 31.
