265 - Mark Thomas
The Comedian's Comedian Podcast
Stuart Goldsmith
4.8 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 15 October 2018
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Mark Thomas is familiar to fans of British comedy as the innovative leftie agitator whose "Comedy Product" show entrapped arms dealers, torturers and Tories to hilarious effect, and at genuine risk to his safety and liberty. He survived being placed on the Domestic Extremist watch-list, and has transformed into a masterful theatre-maker; no less angry but producing richer and more nuanced work. We discuss the dynamic between selflessness and control, learn the influence of critical friendships on his creative process, and find out what all of it has cost him...
Mark Thomas Tour dates and tickets
Exclusive extra material available to podcast supporters at www.comedianscomedian.com/insiders includes Mark waxing lyrical on stand-up as an essentially Thatcherite form, his detective work behind the scenes on the NHS, his biggest failure, and which act he once accidentally impersonated at a Jongleurs gig... Enjoy all extras from shows past and present with access to the private Insiders Club podcast, alongside a host of other strands and projects, including the chance to interview Stu yourself, and take part in a group critical analysis of newer acts from all over the world!
Stu’s 2019 tour of “End Of” has just gone on sale!
“A comedy masterclass… Endlessly inventive” (The List)
Tickets for the first half of the tour at these links:
07/10/2018 Aberystwyth Comedy Festival – The Coliseum
22/02/2019 Maidenhead – Norden Farm
01/03/2019 Falmouth – The Poly
05/04/2019 Reading – South Street Arts
12/04/2019 Leamington Spa - Royal Spa Centre
17/04/2019 Oxford Old Fire Station
19/04/2019 Bromsgrove – The Artix
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Are there any words more guaranteed to strike terror into people's hearts than climate comedy? |
| 0:04.6 | Well, I thought so, and then I took my show Spoilers to the Edinburgh Festival and everyone bloody loved it, |
| 0:09.7 | including Brian Eno, if you can believe that. You can see it at the Soho Theatre from the 29th of November for four nights get your tickets at Stuart Goldsmith.com. |
| 0:20.0 | This is a passenger announcement. You can now book your train on Uber and get 10% back in credits to spend on Uber eats. |
| 0:31.0 | So you can order your own fries instead of eating everyone else's. |
| 0:35.0 | Trains now on Uber. T's and C's apply. Check the Uber app. up. Hello and |
| 1:03.5 | welcome to the show I'm Stuart Goldsmith and today I'm talking to Mark Thomas now this is very much an episode in the background of which you can hear me |
| 1:06.8 | high-fiving my 18-year-old self. Mark's a real hero of mine and I grew up |
| 1:11.4 | watching his Mark Thomas comedy product which was some of the most exciting |
| 1:16.6 | daring innovative investigative kind of I don't know what journalistic comedy he was coming up with very imaginative and very |
| 1:26.2 | funny satirical pranks to play, as we'll go into detail on these, you'll get a sense of what |
| 1:31.4 | I mean. |
| 1:32.4 | And also nowadays he's |
| 1:33.2 | transformed he's been through this kind of renaissance and ended up creating very |
| 1:38.0 | nuanced and typically impassioned works of theater monologueing verbatim theatre, where he's |
| 1:44.8 | investigated and interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people in order to get to the |
| 1:49.2 | meat of a subject, whether it be his dad's love of opera towards the end of his life or the fact that one of his activist friends turned out to be a spy for the police, or as in his latest show, the NHS checkup up at 70 the inner workings of the NHS. |
| 2:05.6 | We've got so much to talk about we're going to jump straight in. |
| 2:08.2 | In this episode we are going to talk about the euphoria of stand-up, about the We're going to talk about how he needs critical friends to guide him along the way |
| 2:24.0 | and we're going to talk about having a missile delivered to Mark's house. |
| 2:28.6 | So plenty of stuff there, lots of stuff in the extras as well for members of the insiders club, which you can join at |
| 2:34.0 | comedians comedian.com slash insiders. |
... |
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