Any comedian can stand up in front of an audience and criticise governments or big business. Not many have the courage to tackle issues head on with the people involved, and expose them on national TV. And probably only one has persuaded a nun and six convent schoolgirls to negotiate an international arms deal. Enter Mark Thomas. Sometime activist, sometime investigative journalist, always stand up comedian, Mark is bringing his new material to Tunbridge Wells, to try it on an audience he knows well, before taking it on a national tour. In the last 15 years, Mark has tackled the authorities, been generally very annoying, and exposed some major flaws in national security. His Channel 4 show The Mark Thomas Product has run for seven series and spawned four specials.
 | | Mark Thomas in amusement arcade |
Viewers have seen Mark hijack a train full of nuclear waste to highlight the lack of security in the industry, break a national news story when he discovered an MP and his wife owned 12 houses, and bet his entire programme budget on a horse, which lost. Mark's take on world events doesn't fit neatly into any comedy boxes. It's thought provoking, sometimes uncomfortable, and certainly unique. Mark is no angry young man though. He's witty, intelligent and a little bit cuddly, and knows how to win over even the most apathetic audiences. A Time Out comedy award winner, Mark has worked with Jonathan Ross and Steve Coogan, travelled from Columbia to Kurdistan and sold out six national tours. His 2001 tour dealt with the controversial construction of the Ilisu dam in Turkey, which threatened to displace nearly 80,000 people and destroy for ever hundreds of historical sites. Before Mark's tour was over, the British construction company hired to build the dam pulled out of the project. In his latest live show, Mark will reveal how he exploited the loopholes in the British government's arms trading laws. His tactic was to mentor groups of schoolchildren as they negotiated the best deals for weapons and instruments of torture.
He recently told Pat Marsh how he got on. Mark is at Trinity Theatre, Tunbridge Wells on May 16, at 8pm, and the script will be finished shortly afterwards. | 
