As the veteran political comic takes a new show on the road, he talks to Andrew Palmer about tax law, wrongful convictions and a swim in a peer's moat

Mark Thomas has been "standing up" for forty years, which is impossible and also true. One of Britain's oldest surviving alternative comics takes a brand-new show on the road this autumn, and the numbers behind it read less like a biography than a charge sheet: eight awards for performing, four for human rights work, and one he invented for himself. Six series of the Mark Thomas Comedy Product. Six books, five plays, three Dispatches films, and three successful lawsuits against the police. Two art exhibitions with the artist Tracey Moberly. One Guinness World Record, since broken, for holding twenty protests in twenty-four hours.

Add a 724km walk along the route of the Israel Wall, a comedy club founded in the West Bank, and a change to UK tax law he is credited with helping bring about, and you begin to understand why the new show's ambition — turning "what the f*ck is going on" into a cogent evening of stand-up — sounds, from him, entirely plausible.

Forty years at the mic — does it feel like an achievement, a life sentence, or both?

"As far as I'm concerned I've done 40 years without having to get a proper job — that's an achievement!"

If sixteen-year-old you, who apparently announced this career choice as a "gobby spasm," could see the tally today — eight performing awards, six books, a Guinness World Record — what would surprise him most?

"My careers officer advised me to join my dad in the building game. He said, 'there is nothing wrong with working with your hands,' which of course he is right about. Equally there is quite a lot wrong with being a patronising bastard. I remember thinking, 'you have not seen my dad's hands' — seriously, like calloused scouring pads.

"What always shocks and delights me is that you can seriously attack the powerful and somehow manage to still earn a living. I have built a career on burnt bridges — woodsmoke makes the most interesting CVs."

The show's billed as turning "what the f*ck is going on" into a cogent evening — how do you build a set when the news keeps rewriting your material week to week?

"Writing. Fortunately the show is about being a carer, and how that fits into a system that derides and abdicates from caring."

You've sued the police and won three times — talk us through the most satisfying of those.

"The most satisfying bit is the compensation cheque, and donating the proceeds to the Miscarriage of Justice Organisation, set up by Paddy Joe Hill, one of the Birmingham Six, wrongfully and falsely imprisoned for sixteen years."

Walking 724km along the route of the Israel Wall is a very different kind of show — what did that do to you that a gig never could?

"That was a thing. My friend and cameraman Phil Stebbing and I managed to walk the entire length of it — we would not be able to do that now. The show was a simple conceit: go off and have an adventure, find out as much as you can, come back and tell the story. We were arrested so many times, detained, threatened with deportation, stoned, fed and cared for, and managed to interview anyone we met on the way. A twenty-minute stand-up set is not the right home for that story."

Starting a comedy club in Palestine with Dr Sam Beale — what does a "good gig" even look like in that context?

"We started the club before the genocide, and it was in the West Bank, so a good gig there and then looked like any other gig: performers enjoy themselves and audiences laugh.

"I created a show about the experience with two Palestinian performers, Alaa Shehada and Faisal Abualhayja, called Showtime from the Frontline, which toured the UK. Both men are remarkable performers, and Alaa has just picked up his second Fringe First at the Edinburgh Festival."

Two art exhibitions with Tracey Moberly — how does making visual art with a collaborator differ from writing a solo hour of stand-up?

"Stand-up can be very solitary. Having someone working with you forces you into interesting situations. Working with the artist Tracey Moberly is a treat — she is funny, playful and practical. Working with someone else means you don't shrug off an idea because you are a bit tired or haven't developed it enough. She would just keep picking at a notion until something came of it. We'd start talking about one thing in the morning, and the next day we'd be charging round London in the early hours covering estate agent signs with posters reading 'Estate Agents: everyone hates you.' Or turning up in a very bourgeois area and covering every For Sale sign with the classic image from Kes, Billy Casper flicking the Vs.

"There was a member of the House of Lords who had received public money to clean his moat. I decided that, as we had paid for it, we should have use of it — so, finding myself in the area, I broke into the Lord's estate, stripped off and swam in the moat. I don't think I would have done it if someone had not been there to film and witness it. I should add, I stank of moat water for the next three days.

"I work and collaborate with folk as much as I can — directors, playwrights, performance artists. I get bored easily, and I want input, ideas, people."

You've watched comedy go from a fiver on the door to seventy-pound arena tours — has the audience for political comedy actually changed, or just the industry around it?

"Both. When I started, the word 'career' was called the C word. I wanted to be a Bohemian. No one used the phrase 'industry,' and if they did they were regarded as a twat.

"The big change is that when I started, comedy clubs were where you went to see things you had not seen before — because you could not see this stuff on the telly. Now audiences go to gigs knowing exactly what to expect, often knowing the exact material, because they have seen it on social media. Alternative cabaret was very much aligned to anti-racist and anti-sexist politics. Not so much now, ironically, as the circuit is more diverse than it has ever been.

"The current comedy circuit very much reflects the UK's political demographics, so in some cases audiences do not want politics onstage, as it comes with a risk of division and confrontation — Reform-y places, generally. Racism has become so accepted in mainstream politics and media that these ideas are regarded as 'common sense' rather than politics, so for some audience members, mocking racists and racism onstage is as absurd as slagging off breathing.

"Having said that, there is a taste — even a need — for political comedy, and I still love doing it."

Being credited with changing tax avoidance law is a hell of a career highlight — is there an equally unglamorous, unsexy campaign win still on your bucket list?

"Well… putting the CEOs and board directors of the privatised water companies in a very sewagey cell would be up there."

Straight-faced: do you think you'll still be doing this at fifty years?

"I have not got a pension."



Mark Thomas: 40 in Stand-Up Years Northern Tour
To book tickets, click here

September

Wed 16th Hebden Bridge - The Trades Club, Holmes

Thu 17th Redhills Durham Miners Hall

Fri 18th Marsden Mechanics, Huddersfield

Sat 19th Stockton On Tees - Arc Theatre

Sun 20th Leeds City Varieties

Wed 23rd Edinburgh - The Stand


October

Wed 21st Hull Social

Thu 22nd Sheffield - Memorial Hall, Sheffield City Hall

Fri 23rd Otley Courthouse, Courthouse Street

Sun 25th Sale Waterside Arts

Mon 26th York – The Crescent Community Venue

November

Wed 18th Manchester - Home

Thu 19th Chorley Theatre

Fri 20th Liverpool - Everyman Theatre

December

Sat 12th Glasgow - The Stand

Sun 13 Newcastle - The Stand