Shhh...don't tell them it's theatre! An interview with Mark Thomas
10 September, 2012
by: Emma
Political activist and comedian Mark Thomas talks to Emma McAlpine about his most theatrical and personal show to date.
Where do you start with Mark Thomas? This is a man who has been shot at walking the entire length of Israel's Separation wall, had inheritance tax law changed, chaired the Illisu Dam campaign to stop thousands of Kurdish people being displaced in southeast Turkey, won a Guinness World Record for the most demonstrations held in one day and exposed various arms dealers, torturers and multinational companies like Coca Cola for their nefarious practices. You could spend hours talking to him about all of his extraordinary work to date, but today, I’m calling him to discuss his lastest work in particular.
The story about his Methodist father Colin – an opera-loving builder with a degenerative disease – Bravo Figaro! was a massive hit at the Edinburgh Fringe (the amount of stars on his post-Fringe press release takes up nearly a whole page). Not that Thomas has read much of the critical response. “I don’t read reviews,” he tells me. “You start getting concerned about what people say and even when they like you, they’re bound to get something wrong that will piss you off. I’m a typical hypocritical performer: I think all reviewers don’t know what they’re talking about until I get good reviews, in which case they’re really insightful people!”
Bravo Figaro! was originally commissioned by The Royal Opera House as part of their Ignite Festival, after director Mike Figgis heard Thomas talking about his father’s opera obsession on Radio 4. They also allowed him to take a troupe of their singers to Bournemouth, for a special private concert in his father’s bungalow. A recording of this, and his father’s reaction, makes for one of the most moving parts of the show, although if you think it sounds like a heart-warming account of a loving father-son relationship so far, you’d be wrong.
Colin was, in his son’s words, a "grumpy bastard" and part of the show’s appeal is how searingly honest and unsentimental Thomas is about his father. “You always try and make it honest, that’s where the most interesting things lie, rather than in the certainties,” he says. “Families are problematic; they’re our first experience of love, trust, betrayal, power, obedience and rebellion, and they’re also the templates for how we learn behaviour which we either react against or accept. We learn to live with our family's imperfections and I find that really interesting.”
Thomas has come a long way from his stand-up roots. While his recent productions have plenty of humour running through them, they’ve become increasingly theatrical and built around his gift for storytelling. “On the last tour about walking the wall, my tour manager used to say ‘Shhh...don’t tell them it’s theatre.’ The audience will either work it out or they won’t. I haven’t done stand-up for ten years. It’s about looking at ideas, telling stories and trying to create shows that are unique.”
A self-confessed "mouthy bastard", performance is clearly in his bones. I ask him whether, as the son of a Methodist preacher, he ever considered going into religion or politics, before stand-up comedy. “I think for a week maybe when I was eight, I wanted to be a vicar,” he reflects. “And for about an hour I contemplated being an MEP because so few people vote for them that with a bit of work you could get elected. But then I just thought, no, don’t be a fucking idiot!” He agrees he’s made more of a difference as a left-wing comedian and activist, than he ever could have as a politician. “Politicians are usually the last part of the process. When it comes to progressive change, it’s normally us lot that get out there and campaign and do it.”
I wonder, out of everything he’s worked on, what he’s most proud of. “Probably the Illisu Dam. It became a very personal, genuine obsession for several years and I got to know a lot of the Kurdish community. I ended up as campaign coordinator. I’d go off and do the TV series for six months and then stop everything and do the campaign for six months. Then we turned it into a show and toured it. Two thirds of the way through the tour, the deal collapsed. They still haven’t built that dam and they still haven’t dispossessed those people. They’re trying but we’ve done our bit now. You have to move on or you’d go nuts.”
Mark Thomas: Bravo Figaro! is at Leicester Square Theatre on December 1st at 7:30pm
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