Mark Thomas: Gaffa Tapes

Mark’s now famous mix of standup, theatre, journalism and the odd bout of performance art has made him one of our oldest surviving alternative comics. Often referred to as the ‘godfather of political comedy’ (amidst many other things), Mark has been performing comedy for nearly 40 years.

If you don’t know what Mark does, ask your parents. In his time, he has won 8 awards for performing, 3 for human rights work… and 1 he invented for himself. He has made 6 series of the Mark Thomas Comedy Product and 3 Dispatches for Channel 4, made 5 series of the Manifesto for Radio 4, written 5 books and 4 playscripts, curated and authored 2 art exhibitions with artist Tracey Moberly and was commissioned to write a show for the Royal Opera House. He has forced a politician to resign, changed laws on tax and protest, become the Guinness Book of Records world-record holder for number of protests in 24 hours, taken the police to court three times and won (the fourth is in the pipeline), walked the length of the Israeli Wall in the West Bank (that’s 724km), and generally mucked about trying to have fun and upset (shall we say) the right people.