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MARK THOMAS - BIRMINGHAM GLEE CLUB 25TH NOV 2007   Print  E-mail 
Written by Graham Reed  
Monday, 26 November 2007

Ever wanted to bring capitalism crashing down but can't get time off work to do it? Mark Thomas might just be able to help….

Courtesy of his newly insitgated political service solutions service.Yes, Mark Thomas, one man freelance lobby group and comedian, with a message slightly more relevant than telling just how many birds he’s shagged whilst looking like he’s fallen out a hedge covered in glue, nopw does political protests to order.And if you’re on a budget, he even does value demos. Only 99p!

 

Its a long journey from three seasons of jollies on Channel4 which got canned for being too political, where Mark Thomas didn't so much break the law as politely nudge its more interesting and absurd nuances, to the stand up circuit - sort of like Ricky Gervais in reverse. But unlike Ricky Gervais, he's actually funny, not sanitised, not watered down, not second guessing himself and chuckling at his own jokes, and certainly not guest starring as in hollywood fantasy films as comic relief. Thank God then, really.

 

More interestingly, Mark Thomas is also a Guiness world record holder for most political demonstrations in a 24 hour period. Which sort of tells you a lot, really. Part Agit Prop, part thorn in the side of the Met, part author and part smartarse, what Mark Thomas is is a man without a hobby - by his admission - but driven by an almost pathological need to prove the law is an ass. Tonights show - in two halves, with an interval - is a two hour odyessy through the labyrinthe, almost Kafka-esque stream of officiousness, paperwork and the paradoxies of the law of the land. Think Terry Gilliams Brazil, hosted by Bill Hicks, in the style of 24/7 Big Brother. All whilst standing outside Channel 4 with a banner saying “Big Brother is…not very good”. Which is just one of the demonstrations he covers tonight.

 

Coming on stage to the sounds of Alabama  3 and Johnny Cash, Mark Thomas revisits material familiar from his ‘undercurrents’ DVD and – more pertinently - his recent best seller “As used on the famous Nelson Mandela” You see, what Mark Thomas is good at is paying attention to the little nitty gritty details of the law. Now, under the Provisions of the Serious Organised Crime Act of 2005, which requries any protest within a certain area to be licensed, all protest now has to be approved. Government approved protest. Sanctioned. Now we have to apply to exercise our freedom of speech. And well, what better way of exercising our free speech than asking to do so? For Everytime? So, If you want to wear a CND badge in Parliament Square, or eat a cake with the word ‘peace’ on ityou have to apply in writing six days in advance. Just think of the paperwork.

 

Mark Thomas? he did. He thought of the paperwork. And with that thought in mind, he starts protesting, simply by applying to protest. Its that simple. Generating reams and reams of paperwork, to prove the point how absurd the law really is. And that’s what tonight is about.

 

From running one man random flashmob demonstrations saying “Cut Police paperwork!” to being stopped and searched by Police at Arms fairs for being ‘overconfident’; From agreeing to buy illegal electro shock batons to running a protestor for hire service; from being paid by his own wife to protest against himself to run ins to being issued a police escort against the police themselves…. That’s Mark Thomas, a man who may well have invented the phrase “if I can’t laugh to it, its’ not my revolution.”

 

With a two hour performance that is frequently hilarious, always enlightening, subversive and mischaevious, and with a private prosecution at hand ready to be instantly unleashed...Unabashedly political – though never overstepping the line between entertainment and educational, and not so much preaching as proseltyisng – Mark Thomas is an informed, impassioned,occasionally side splitting night out. Enjoy!

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