Last time the Salford Star met Mark Thomas, he and his co-collaborators were outside Hazel Blears' house at the height of the expenses scandal holding a massive placard reading `Capital Gains Tax Free Zone'…
"What we're celebrating here is that Hazel Blears has got this wonderful magical area" he said, and pointing to her path added "I think if you step over that line you're in Hazel Blears land, where normal laws do not apply." (see full Salford Star article – click here).
As the comedian comes back to Salford for the first time since 2009, Hazel's standing down as Salford MP at the next election. Is he pleased?
"I've always regarded Hazel Blears as a pitbull for Blairism, and for the illegal invasion of Iraq, and for the continual running down of services and privatisation" he explains "They were the outriders for what we see happening now, so I don't see her leaving as any worse or better than any of them. The question is what are we going to do to be able to control these people?"
Since the Nineties, Mark Thomas has been doing plenty to try and `control these people', metaphorically pulling their pants down, firstly through his brilliant tv show The Mark Thomas Comedy Product and later through annual shows that have never lost their allure to Greater Manchester audiences.
This tour is perhaps his most ambitious yet, promising to deliver `100 Acts of Minor Dissent' in the space of a year. By the time Mark Thomas hits The Lowry on 24th April he'll have less than a month to finish them off and present them as a complete set in Sheffield on May 13th. Otherwise he has to donate £1,000 to UKIP…
"If you're going to have a forfeit, have a forfeit that actually hurts you" he decides. And UKIP members would go swivel eyed at what Thomas has already been up to.
As well as small acts, like entering bookshops and putting `Soon to be available at charity shops' stickers on crap celebrity books, he's also managed to block off the street around the Russian Consulate by having a gay rights protest featuring six hundred people – complete with gay, lesbian and bisexual performers.
"It's everything from that, to taking the police to court over data collation" he explains "This one is being backed by the NUJ and we've got other journalists who are joining the court case, which is about challenging police politics. It's about them collating data on journalists and putting them on a domestic extremist data base. We're waiting for the legal processes of other cases to finish before we can serve our papers but we've got everyone lined up and are ready to go."
Given what the Salford Star journalist and photographer have had to put up with at Barton Moss, courtesy of Greater Manchester Police, we'll certainly be joining in with this one. It's serious stuff – but how does Mark Thomas make it funny and entertaining?
"I make it entertaining because I'm a fucking genius" he spits – and not many would disagree. It would be more than fair to say that Mark Thomas set the tone and agenda for the likes of UK Uncut and the Occupy movement to follow…pranks that had a wicked point stabbed through the middle of them for a world that was getting more wicked every day.
"I don't think that there's necessarily one formula that works" he reflects "I think that you use anything you can in terms of being an effective campaigner."
One medium that Mark Thomas no longer feels is necessary is tv, and he rarely appears on the small screen these days out of choice.
"Television and I look at each other in mutual disinterest and with mistrust" he says "I'm just not interested in doing that any more. I'm just interested in coming up with my little weird shows every year, to tour and create things that are more interesting and to come up with more imaginative ways of doing things. It's about doing work that I want to do."
As television has got lazy, out of touch, unvital and uninteresting, to see Mark Thomas, the real deal, you have to get off your couch and see him live. Don't miss this show. Inspiring doesn't begin to describe this `fucking genius'…
Mark Thomas: 100 Acts of Minor Dissent
Thursday 24th April
The Lowry
(because it's at The Lowry it's £18 inc booking fee – but in this instance it's well worth nicking from the kids' piggy bank…)
For more details see The Lowry website – click here
See also www.markthomasinfo.co.uk
See also the Mark Thomas protest at the Apple Store in London on YouTube – click here.
And the LGBT gig outside the Russian consulate in Edinburgh – click here
Mark Thomas photo by Steve Ullathorne
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