Interview: Mark Thomas

Doubting Thomas

Acclaimed comic and activist Mark Thomas returns to his awarding-winning memoir show for his father: Bravo Figaro. He’s also in town with his new show about being targeted by the secret service – Victoria Nangle digs a little …

Hi Mark, how is today treating you?
Rushed but good thank you. Mixture of unfinished work and unfinished play.

You’ve returned to your show ‘Bravo Figaro’, which I’m very pleased about as I missed it first time around. Having done another show (‘Cuckooed’) since then what made you return to this one?
Lots of coincidences. The offer to perform it in New Zealand and Australia made me think about the show again and how much I enjoyed performing it. The chance to perform it in May alongside ‘Cuckooed’ at the BAC in London. But the chance to perform both shows back to back was what sealed it for me.

It’s billed as being about your relationship with your dad. Has doing the show made you change your ideas at all as to how you see that relationship?
Yes. Doing his show and his death have made me a lot more forgiving. 

And has it made you any more self-conscious of the relationships that you build with your own kids?
Nope. I have and will always continue to be the embarrassment they know and love.

Nationally and internationally, we seem to be going to hell in a hand basket lately – with schools being attacked, the siege in the coffee shop in Australia, the almost ‘normalisation’ of war crimes that were released by the CIA etc. Do you see the goodness provoked like #illwalkwithyou as optimistic?
We have been going to hell in a basket for a long time, all you have to do is cast your mind back to Dressden or Vietnam or Shatilla or Sharpville. I am always optimistic. Our capacity for kindness is what has made it all bearable.

After your 100 Acts Of Minor Dissent, racking them up at such a pace in 2013/14, did you find it difficult to stop cold turkey?
Sort of – on one hand it was a relief, on the other you couldn’t pass a UKIP bill oars without twitching… Tho’ that is also a rational reaction.

I love your merchandise on your website. Is it just me or is all of it pretty much motivated by spreading acts of dissent as far and wild as possible?
The merchandise has two purposes, to spread mischief and to pay my researcher her wages.

Your latest show, ‘Cuckooed’, tells of the extent of the government’s monitoring of your actions and infiltration into your life. A lot of your shows have a spine of spreading optimism and hope – has this affected your ability to hang on to this, with your trust abused so?
Bizarrely, in the telling of this show I have gone around and found old friends who were involved in the story, I interviewed them about the show and play some of those interviews in the show. That process has left me closer to those people than ever. Trust is what binds us together, it is the cornerstone of any and every movement for progressive social change.

If your kids put on a show to demonstrate their love for you, what do you think they’d consider your secret passions to be – to honour you?
Most of my passions are publically known, but taking them walking to look for stone circles and getting lost would be high on the list.

Any new year’s resolutions?
Spend more time looking for stone circles.

Bravo Figaro, Ropetackle Centre, Shoreham, Wednesday 25 January 2015, 8pm,
£14, 01273 464440, ropetacklecentre.co.uk

Cuckooed, Corn Exchange, Brighton Dome, Thursday 5 March 2015, £16/14, 01273 709709, brightondome.org

Picture Credit: Steve Ullahtorne