Interview: Mark Thomas
Activist, comedian, journalist, writer, and much more – Mark Thomas has many strings to his bow and it just keeps getting more tuneful. He talks with Victoria Nangle about The Red Shed
Hi Mark, how are you today?
I am currently in the tour van heading to Nottingham so I am slightly crumpled, in need of coffee and wondering if I really did see a “Baby on board” sticker on the back of an Eddie Stobart truck.
The Red Shed is the latest in your theatrical trilogy. Whereas Bravo Figaro was familial, and Cuckooed about a betrayal, would it be fair to say that The Red Shed digs deep to bare the twining of your emotional and political roots?
Yes, it would. The Red Shed is a wooden socialist shed in Wakefield and it was the place where I came of age politically as a student involved with the miners strike. So this story is about the mining communities and the left, Labour, and what happened to those communities the Labour leadership decided to ignore. AND it is about personal and class history. It is also fucking great and very funny.
You keep an inspiring fire in your belly as an activist. There is always inequality, unfairness, bullying… but what keeps your fires stoked so that they can constantly flame hot on the underdog’s behalf?
I think it is a mix of belligerence and utter incomprehension that the rest of the world doesn’t know that I am right.
The Red Shed is a labour club. Do you feel the gap between the labour clubs and the Labour Party may change with the last 12 months’ activities within the party and in a wider Brexit-landscape?
I think the gulf between the membership and the PLP is the thing to watch here.
What did you enjoy most in the writing and gathering of stories to make The Red Shed?
Hanging out with friends and comrades AND talking to people I was on nodding terms with and finding out their amazing stories. Everyone in the club has done something remarkable. The chap who collects pots and always turns up to help move chairs sat and told me about his involvement in the 1972 builders strike. Amazing. And silly of me not to expect this to be the case.
A sort of McThomas thing… we could do that
With your movement into a theatre/stand up crossover, would you ever write something for the stage that took yourself out of the equation as a performer?
A PLAY?!?! I have written a short play for Theatre Uncut which ended up being performed at the Young Vic! I just sat in the audience thinking “fuck I wrote this while waiting for a beef stew to cook”
Also there is nothing that reveals your own failings as a writer than someone else trying to make the words work.
Perhaps franchise out the successful Manifesto gathering of new policies?
A sort of McThomas thing…We could do that. But I promise you it always takes more work than you imagine.
Conversely, would you ever step onto the stage solely as a performer of someone else’s words, as other comedians have done in recent times?
ACTING?!?!?!?! Yes, if it was fun and interesting and the person I was working with knew what they were doing.
But I have to say casting agents have not been beating a path to my door, possibly because I can never keep to the script I write let alone one someone else has.
What do you think should be done with Brighton’s burned pier?
It should be turned into a 24 hour continuous play cinema, featuring only Jackie Chan movies.
If everyone did one small thing every day to help make the world better, what do you think that one small thing should be?
Throw away their car keys.
If everyone did one small thing to make the world sillier what do you think that one small thing should be?
Talk like Mark E Smith at breakfast time.
What are your plans for the next 12 months?
Touring, writing, possibly directing, over throwing capitalism.
Mark Thomas, The Red Shed, The Old Market
Tuesday 8 November 2016, 7pm & 9pm, £12/10, theoldmarket.com
