Features / Mark Thomas promise: ‘expect mayhem’
POLITICAL rabble-rouser/comedian Mark Thomas hasn’t been to Shetland before, but has heard that the people up here are up for a little establishment cage rattling, writes Alex Garrick-Wright.
He certainly hopes that’s the case, as he brings his personal blend of stand-up and activism to Mareel this Friday night, with the Shetland leg of his Trespass tour.
Shetland News spoke to the commedian to ask him what the Mareel audience should expect. “Mayhem,” apparently.
Thomas is a well-known face in British comedy, making early appearances on the BBC’s The Mary Whitehouse Experiment in the late 1980s, and headlined his own political comedy series with Channel 4’s The Mark Thomas Comedy Product, which ran for six series until 2002.
His live tours, books, TV and radio work since then is exhaustive, with hardly a quiet moment in the last 20 years (highlights include the Guinness World Record for Most Political Demonstrations in 24 Hours and an honorary doctorate for his comedy and activism).
Activism is the backbone of Thomas’ stand-up and writing, and he said that comedy and politics are “necessarily linked”. His staunch socio-political beliefs inform his stand-up and fuel his fire; describing himself as a ‘libertarian anarchist’ whose influences include Dave Allen and Alexei Sayle.
He doesn’t separate his comedy from his journalism or activism; quite the opposite. “Comedy,” he said, “isn’t a passive art form. It requires you to think, to process. If you make people laugh about it they have to think about it.”
His previous show, 100 Acts of Minor Dissent, was a self-imposed challenge to stand up to the powers-that-be in a hundred daft little ways (104, to be precise), and is the bedrock that Trespass is built on. It’s something he said he was very proud of, and it summarises his whole approach perfectly – to fight the sinister with the silly.
Trespass, Thomas continues, is “the end of the 38 year experiment of privatisation.” A fusion of journalism, subversion and comedy, Trespass is rooted in the right of the common person to seize back the public spaces that have been taken over by corporations and private interests.
Thomas said that he’s been horrified to see the way big companies have encroached into the open spaces that should exist for the enjoyment of everyone, and the way this has been condoned – aided and abetted, even – by those who are meant to maintain a fair society.
It’s just another aspect, he says, of people being bullied; of social justice being swept aside to help fill the pockets of the already obscenely wealthy. The way to fight back is to dissent; to trespass (obviously).
Thomas says he doesn’t just want to make you laugh, he wants to make you think, and make you angry at the way we’re all being exploited by the people at the top of the financial food chain, and the “parasitic” politicians who dote on them.
“You want people to come away looking at things differently,” he said. “If you watch Dave more than three times a week, don’t come to the show. We want people who can think independently.”
If you like politics, comedy, or any combination of the two, tickets are still available from Shetland Box Office.
While the irony of trying to get into a show called Trespass without a ticket is tempting, it is not recommended!
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