Reviews & features: Mark Thomas
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Mark Thomas: Bravo Figaro!
10 Aug 2012
An operatic voyage around his father
The very least you would expect from a show about a son arranging for an opera to be performed in his dying father’s living room is to be moved. And in Bravo Figaro!, Mark Thomas achieves that on at least two occasions, but in surprising ways and at…
Comedians Mark Thomas and Ross Sutherland debuting theatre shows at Fringe 2012
28 Jul 2012
Mark Thomas' Edinburgh show based on his father's degenerative illness
We know Mark Thomas. The radical, left-wing comedian and activist famously drove a tank disguised as an ice cream van up Whitehall in a televised attempt to have it exported to Iraq. More recently, he has been doing stage shows recounting his…
Dying of laughter: Shows about death at the 2012 Edinburgh Fringe
11 Jul 2012
Dead funny Fringe has comedians inspecting death from every angle
Earlier this year, William Shatner made the headlines by advising that he might die onstage in his new one-man show. His life-threatening sales pitch was a literal one: at 80, the former Star Trek legend admitted that embarking on regular 100-minute…
Twenty top shows at the 2012 Edinburgh Festivals
11 Jul 2012
Highlights from the Fringe, Book and International Festivals
Having scanned the 23.6m shows, exhibitions and events across the festival in late July, August and early September, we pluck out the ones that simply cannot be missed
Mark Thomas: Extreme Rambling (Walking the Wall)
12 Aug 2011
Following a dangerous tourist trail
The problem with political comedy is that, in sharing a joke with a person simultaneously making a serious point, you can easily become confused about what it is you’re signing up for. Added to this, Mark Thomas has an enviable rhetorical tool at his…
Comedy picks for the Edinburgh Fringe 2011
20 Jul 2011
David O’Doherty Two shows this year from the beloved man of lo-fi musical comedy with the high-laugh quotient. His usual brilliant sit-down/stand-up fare, David O’Doherty is Looking Up, is augmented by his debut on the one-man comic play scene. Rory…
Martin Bell, Mark Thomas and Annie Lennox set for Festival of Politics
16 Jul 2010
Power of the People event examines political process
Were you depressed by the outcome of the general election? The Conservatives back in power despite being all but annihilated in Scotland. Labour collapsed despite being endorsed north of the border. The Lib Dems putting Cameron in Downing Street. The…
Top 20 Festival Shows
12 Aug 2009
Emmanuel Jal There are few people who could even imagine the terrors of being a child made to fight in a war-torn homeland. This guy has lived it and come through the other side. Jen Hadfield In a year of poetry shocks, this Shetlands-based…
Comedy Hitlist
9 Aug 2009
The best comedy from the festival
Pappy’s Fun Club A supersonic jaunt through a ludicrous yet hilarious number of sketches in a mere 60 minutes. Pleasance Courtyard, 556 6550, until 31 Aug (not 17), 7.20pm, £12-£14 (£10.50-£12.50). Hans Teeuwen The Dutch comic-actor breaks…
Comedy Hitlist
29 Jul 2009
Who's making us laugh at the Fringe?
Die Roten Punkte - Robot/Lion Tour, Janeane Garofalo, Laura Solon: Rabbit Faced Story Soup, Mark Thomas: The Manifesto, Rhys Darby: It's Rhys Darby Night, WitTank
Campaign manager - Mark Thomas
13 Jul 2009
The comic who matters brings democracy to the Fringe
The origins of the apocryphal Chinese curse ‘may you live in interesting times’ are obscure. But for comedian and activist Mark Thomas, political instability, economic meltdown and the imminent collapse of Western civilisation can occasionally feel like…
Festival of Politics
14 Aug 2008
Meanwhile, over at the Scottish Parliament... the Festival of Politics is back for a fourth year and making visiting Fringe slebs really work for their money, as Simon Callow leads a discussion on changing rights for LGBT communities in the UK, and…
Best of the rest - Festival of Politics
22 Jul 2008
Banking on Disaster? With the world economy faltering badly, is the credit crunch about to spiral out of control into a global depression? Among those we hope will be easing our fears is presenter of Dragons’ Den and Today, Evan Davis. Unjust…
