That Mark Thomas knows how to do stand-up shouldn’t be in doubt. He’s been at it for 39 years after all. To watch him at the Stand is to see someone who is on top of both form and content, who enjoys the performance, indeed, has huge fun with it, and who is alive to his audience. He is by any measure a consummate stand-up.
Will you find him funny though? I guess that depends on your politics.
In some senses this is a back to basics show. Thomas came to the Fringe last year with a play which won six awards, toured the UK and left him skint, he says.
So, he has come to Edinburgh this year to play to his strengths; ie having a go at Tories, Keir Starmer and racists.
There is, as anyone who stayed up to see Liz Truss lose in the recent election will no doubt affirm, a fierce joy to be had in celebrating the demise of the Conservative government. But Thomas’s radical progressive position precludes welcoming any Starmerite fellow travellers.
That shouldn’t really be a surprise to anyone at this point. Thomas is famous as both comedian and political activist. He is here to make you laugh and fight the good fight at the same time. Often in the same breath. At one point Thomas tells us his father was something of a lay preacher and you can see a similar impulse in his son. This is conviction comedy.
Jumping between punchline and rant, Thomas powers through an hour of material with a glorious manic energy. Which doesn’t stop it from being carefully crafted. There’s a wonderfully worked inverted routine on Tory immigration policy here that is searing.
All of which in the end makes for a thrilling show. But one that’s preaching to the converted.
Mark Thomas: Gaffa Tapes, The Stand Comedy Club (Stand 1), 18.30pm, until August 25 (except August 12), 13.15pm, August 26
https://tickets.edfringe.com/whats-on/mark-thomas-gaffa-tapes
