» Mark Thomas interview
Victoria Nangle chats to comedian, activist, novelist and policy collector Mark Thomas
Mark Thomas is enjoying the sunshine, but more than that, he’s enjoying his new tour. Obviously there’s going to be some political content to it – this is Mark Thomas, scourge of the status quo and campaigner for the little people. But how will it manifest? So I asked him – what’s the show about?
“Okay. It’s a comedy show, and basically what I do is I ask people to come up with suggestions for policies to improve our lives and make the world a better place. And people put forward their policies and then we discuss them in the show and then we vote on them and we choose a policy and I go and campaign upon it.” That sounds brilliant. And he’s had some classic policies come out of it so far. “Some of them we’ve started working on already. The good thing is there’s loads of really really good ideas. It’s really fun to do.” Any examples? “Last night when we were in Manchester they insisted on having two policies. The policy at one was that you should have a recall system for MPs so that you can sign a petition and recall an MP back to their constituency now and again. The other one that won was that there should be an age of consent for religion.”
“One of my favourite ones that I thought would win but didn’t was that bailiffs should be middle class.”
It makes you think. Then Mark volunteers a brilliant suggestion. “One of my favourite ones that I thought would win but didn’t was that bailiffs should be middle class. I thought that was superb. It would be wonderful. They’d just turn up and look at it and go: ”Well, there’s nothing worth taking here, darling”. I asked the woman who suggested it, I said: ”Why did you come up with it?”, and she said in this broad Mancunian accent: ”They turn up and we’d just do the scary accent and then they’d **** off”. Class.
And action can be practically instantaneous. What’s Mark Thomas been up to today? “We just had a demonstration outside Hazel Blears’s house. Where we’ve declared it a tax free zone.” We chuckle.
Hazel Blears, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, resigned the next day.
Any connection?
Mark Thomas: It’s The Stupid Economy is on at Komedia, Tuesday 16 and Wednesday 17 June at 8pm, tickets cost £15/10.
