Mark Thomas: 40 in Stand-Up Years

What?! Mark Thomas has been ‘standing up’ for 40 years? Impossible! But how old does that make you…? Alas it is true; one of our oldest surviving alternative comics celebrates 40 years at the mic.

So, here’s what he has done so far in numbers; performed comedy for 40 years, won eight awards for performing, four for human rights work and one he invented for himself, made six series of the Mark Thomas Comedy Product (Channel 4), written six books and five play scripts, made five series of The Manifesto for Radio 4, made three Dispatches for Channel 4, sued the police (and won) three times, curated and authored two art exhibitions with artist Tracey Moberly and had one Guinness World Record for holding 20 protests in 24 hours.

If that’s not enough, he’s also walked 724km around the length of the Israel Wall in the West Bank, been credited with changing the law on tax avoidance, started a comedy club in Palestine with Dr Sam Beale and campaigned successfully for things like trade union recognition for cinema workers and getting multinationals to change their practices. You’re right, there’s more, but your attention is running out and we’re running out of space. So let’s just say he’s generally mucked about trying to have fun and upset the right people… which he is really, really good at.

So basically expect a taster menu of government and personal mayhem, jokes, rants and a personal state of the nation broadcast as he tries to turn ‘what the f*ck is going on?’ into a cogent hour of stand-up.