Friday, August 26, 2016

MARK THOMAS at EDINBURGH FRINGE

Mark Thomas manages to get a unique balance between sentimentality and sincerity , made me blub a couple of times.

This preview from a Yorkshire paper records the history of the project in the first venue he performed as a budding student comedian and his political journey thereafter.


 This review from the Scotsman captures the show and its mesmeric effect on the audience


For the most part, though, it’s just Mark Thomas, the audience, and the art that conceals art, as he tells his beautifully-paced and structured story of a quest to find a valued part of his own past that he is afraid he may just have invented, or mythologised. His point is that narrative is power; and that if there is to be any chance of fighting back against the dominant right-wing narratives of our time, then the stories told in the cause of a more humane and sustainable future had better be true. In what’s often called a “post-truth” culture, it’s an unfashionable view; but it gives Mark Thomas’s show a weight, a structural strength, and a passionate humanity that surpasses most other work on the Fringe by a long Yorkshire mile, and has many members of the audience wiping away tears, as the story finally reaches journey’s end.

Read more at: http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/culture/theatre/theatre-review-mark-thomas-the-red-shed-1-4204269
 In this video Mark Thomas gives his take on the Artists For Palestine UK display advertising the arrest of Palestinian Poet Dareen Tatour for writing a Poem against the ills of the Occupation and Settler Colonialism.


For the most part, though, it’s just Mark Thomas, the audience, and the art that conceals art, as he tells his beautifully-paced and structured story of a quest to find a valued part of his own past that he is afraid he may just have invented, or mythologised. His point is that narrative is power; and that if there is to be any chance of fighting back against the dominant right-wing narratives of our time, then the stories told in the cause of a more humane and sustainable future had better be true. In what’s often called a “post-truth” culture, it’s an unfashionable view; but it gives Mark Thomas’s show a weight, a structural strength, and a passionate humanity that surpasses most other work on the Fringe by a long Yorkshire mile, and has many members of the audience wiping away tears, as the story finally reaches journey’s end.

Read more at: http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/culture/theatre/theatre-review-mark-thomas-the-red-shed-1-4204269
For the most part, though, it’s just Mark Thomas, the audience, and the art that conceals art, as he tells his beautifully-paced and structured story of a quest to find a valued part of his own past that he is afraid he may just have invented, or mythologised. His point is that narrative is power; and that if there is to be any chance of fighting back against the dominant right-wing narratives of our time, then the stories told in the cause of a more humane and sustainable future had better be true. In what’s often called a “post-truth” culture, it’s an unfashionable view; but it gives Mark Thomas’s show a weight, a structural strength, and a passionate humanity that surpasses most other work on the Fringe by a long Yorkshire mile, and has many members of the audience wiping away tears, as the story finally reaches journey’s end.

Read more at: http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/culture/theatre/theatre-review-mark-thomas-the-red-shed-1-4204269
For the most part, though, it’s just Mark Thomas, the audience, and the art that conceals art, as he tells his beautifully-paced and structured story of a quest to find a valued part of his own past that he is afraid he may just have invented, or mythologised. His point is that narrative is power; and that if there is to be any chance of fighting back against the dominant right-wing narratives of our time, then the stories told in the cause of a more humane and sustainable future had better be true. In what’s often called a “post-truth” culture, it’s an unfashionable view; but it gives Mark Thomas’s show a weight, a structural strength, and a passionate humanity that surpasses most other work on the Fringe by a long Yorkshire mile, and has many members of the audience wiping away tears, as the story finally reaches journey’s end.

Read more at: http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/culture/theatre/theatre-review-mark-thomas-the-red-shed-1-4204269

For the most part, though, it’s just Mark Thomas, the audience, and the art that conceals art, as he tells his beautifully-paced and structured story of a quest to find a valued part of his own past that he is afraid he may just have invented, or mythologised. His point is that narrative is power; and that if there is to be any chance of fighting back against the dominant right-wing narratives of our time, then the stories told in the cause of a more humane and sustainable future had better be true. In what’s often called a “post-truth” culture, it’s an unfashionable view; but it gives Mark Thomas’s show a weight, a structural strength, and a passionate humanity that surpasses most other work on the Fringe by a long Yorkshire mile, and has many members of the audience wiping away tears, as the story finally reaches journey’s end.

Read more at: http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/culture/theatre/theatre-review-mark-thomas-the-red-shed-1-4204269


Alexei Sayle, Dave Allen and the Yorkshire playwright Trevor Griffiths were early influences on his political consciousness and his desire to entertain. “I saw the play Comedians by Trevor Griffiths on TV in which he discusses working class life and working class politics. I thought he was an absolute genius, and it was a sketch by Dave Allen that my dad used to explain to me how apartheid works. I declared myself an atheist at 12, an anarchist at 16 and a Marxist at 18, I spent a year as a Trotskyist and then went back to being a Marxist again. I’ve always been an atheist though.”

Read more at: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/comedian-mark-thomas-on-how-a-yorkshire-shed-gave-him-his-big-break-1-7719110


“I’m really proud of some of the things we achieved. We forced Nestlé to change their packaging on baby milk and exposed Labour politician Michael Meacher who was a buy-to-let landlord. In one episode we descended on Sellafield and set up our own exhibition in the visitor centre to highlight the fact that the local seagull droppings contained radioactive isotopes that could only have come from the nuclear power station. They were forced to admit liability and it cost them £1m to clean up their act.”

Read more at: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/comedian-mark-thomas-on-how-a-yorkshire-shed-gave-him-his-big-break-1-7719110
“I’m really proud of some of the things we achieved. We forced Nestlé to change their packaging on baby milk and exposed Labour politician Michael Meacher who was a buy-to-let landlord. In one episode we descended on Sellafield and set up our own exhibition in the visitor centre to highlight the fact that the local seagull droppings contained radioactive isotopes that could only have come from the nuclear power station. They were forced to admit liability and it cost them £1m to clean up their act.”

Read more at: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/comedian-mark-thomas-on-how-a-yorkshire-shed-gave-him-his-big-break-1-7719110
“I’m really proud of some of the things we achieved. We forced Nestlé to change their packaging on baby milk and exposed Labour politician Michael Meacher who was a buy-to-let landlord. In one episode we descended on Sellafield and set up our own exhibition in the visitor centre to highlight the fact that the local seagull droppings contained radioactive isotopes that could only have come from the nuclear power station. They were forced to admit liability and it cost them £1m to clean up their act.”

Read more at: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/comedian-mark-thomas-on-how-a-yorkshire-shed-gave-him-his-big-break-1-7719110

“I’m really proud of some of the things we achieved. We forced Nestlé to change their packaging on baby milk and exposed Labour politician Michael Meacher who was a buy-to-let landlord. In one episode we descended on Sellafield and set up our own exhibition in the visitor centre to highlight the fact that the local seagull droppings contained radioactive isotopes that could only have come from the nuclear power station. They were forced to admit liability and it cost them £1m to clean up their act.”

Read more at: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/comedian-mark-thomas-on-how-a-yorkshire-shed-gave-him-his-big-break-1-7719110
“I’m really proud of some of the things we achieved. We forced Nestlé to change their packaging on baby milk and exposed Labour politician Michael Meacher who was a buy-to-let landlord. In one episode we descended on Sellafield and set up our own exhibition in the visitor centre to highlight the fact that the local seagull droppings contained radioactive isotopes that could only have come from the nuclear power station. They were forced to admit liability and it cost them £1m to clean up their act.”

Read more at: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/comedian-mark-thomas-on-how-a-yorkshire-shed-gave-him-his-big-break-1-7719110
“I’m really proud of some of the things we achieved. We forced Nestlé to change their packaging on baby milk and exposed Labour politician Michael Meacher who was a buy-to-let landlord. In one episode we descended on Sellafield and set up our own exhibition in the visitor centre to highlight the fact that the local seagull droppings contained radioactive isotopes that could only have come from the nuclear power station. They were forced to admit liability and it cost them £1m to clean up their act.”

Read more at: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/comedian-mark-thomas-on-how-a-yorkshire-shed-gave-him-his-big-break-1-7719110
“I’m really proud of some of the things we achieved. We forced Nestlé to change their packaging on baby milk and exposed Labour politician Michael Meacher who was a buy-to-let landlord. In one episode we descended on Sellafield and set up our own exhibition in the visitor centre to highlight the fact that the local seagull droppings contained radioactive isotopes that could only have come from the nuclear power station. They were forced to admit liability and it cost them £1m to clean up their act.”

Read more at: http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/comedian-mark-thomas-on-how-a-yorkshire-shed-gave-him-his-big-break-1-7719110