Mining laughter from a wall of tears

Mark Thomas says he's an 'alternative entertainer' not a comedian – but he has built a career on being seriously funny. His new show takes in a walk along Israel's separation barrier, writes MARY RUSSELL

THE VENUE is a former church in the garrison town of Colchester, an hour’s train journey north of London. Background music is a mix of Arab and klezmer. The audience is mainly in their 40s and 50s with a sprinkling of hijabs and mohicans; the subject matter is Israel’s West Bank separation barrier.

The backdrop is a huge map of Palestine showing the wall and the way in which it has encroached into Arab territory. So, are we here to pray? To have a political meeting perhaps? Nope, we’re here to laugh.

As Mark Thomas strolls on to the stage clad in his usual black jeans and T-shirt, mug of coffee in his hand, we settle into our seats knowing what to expect – an evening of anecdotes, characterisations and risqué jokes, with a few of them close enough to the knuckle to make us squirm uncomfortably.

Thomas spent three months walking the length of the 700km wall, mostly on the Palestine side but popping over it as well to have a chat with the settlers.

He talked to some Israeli soldiers, asking them what they planned to do after their compulsory military service. Few have any ideas so he offers his own educational bête noire: “You could go to college and do a course in communications and media studies,” he suggests, beaming at his audience, some of whom will have degrees in that very subject.

The soldiers, he finds, are very young, something to do with the fact, he says, that he’s 47 himself: “I was talking to one soldier, he was so young I got nervous I might be done for grooming.”

And there’s an audible gasp from the woman beside me. She’s into am-dram and is sponsoring a Palestinian girl under an Evangelical educational scheme.

Thomas is not a stand-up comedian, he tells me firmly during a telephone interview. So what is he? “I’m an old-school alternative entertainer.”

That and some.

His impersonation of Hugh Grant is perfect. For a split second he actually looks like Hugh Grant. His delivery is fast and furious and his timing is razor sharp as he leads us into our comfort zone with anecdotes about the weekly West Bank demonstration at Bil’in (“The anarchists are on one side smoking roll-ups and the lefties are on the other smoking their tailormades”) before, without warning, bringing us face to face with a Palestinian whose brother was killed by an Israeli bullet at Bil’in, the village cut in half by the wall.

We stop laughing.

THOMAS STARTED HIS career, some 25 years ago, doing student gigs and soup kitchens during the miners’ strike in Britain. His shows – humour spiced with irony – have always had a political slant. One he did on the arms trade included two schools, one in Britain and one in Portlaoise, where the students, quite legally, were able to set themselves up as potential arms dealers. The accompanying book is called The After-school Arms Club.

This current show, a breathless non-stop tour that runs until September, has its own book : Extreme Rambling: A Walk Along Israel's Separation Barrier. For Fun.

His publicity shot for the show is of himself holding up a pair of walking boots (left).

“My wife says it looks like I’ve just shot a rambler,” he tells the audience. He walked the wall in the company of Phil, his photographer, a man who seemed to have no great interest in the political side of things and who just wanted to get his shots right – and stay out of trouble.

When they stray into an army firing range, Phil is the first to leg it over the hill. But touch his camera and he’s a Rottweiler: “You damage that and I’ll f***ing kill you,” he tells a member of the Israeli Defence Forces.

Focused on events in Britain – Margaret Thatcher took up a lot of his time, as did the invasion of Iraq – Mark Thomas previously had no great interest in Israel and Palestine. Palestinian suicide bombers turned him off, he tells the audience, until the Israelis went into action against Gaza with “Operation Cast Lead”. Then he got serious. Or, in this case, seriously funny.

He goes on to describe a settler’s BB in which he and Phil stayed, the décor of which – think glass giraffe ornaments – made it look “like a trinket shop that’s been in a car crash”.

The Israeli owner is welcoming and talkative and shows them pictures of his family, including a deceased uncle about whom he proceeds to tell his visitors a stereotypically anti-Jewish joke.

Thomas and Phil are speechless with horror. You can’t say that. You’re not allowed.

The audience is gobsmacked as well. Suppose there are Jews in the audience? But wait. Maybe it’s okay because it was a settler making a joke against his own people. Not us saying it. Though we did laugh, didn’t we, before we could stop ourselves.

But there’s no time for agonising soul-searching. Thomas is taking us on to the next anecdote, about how the walk cost £1,000 and was funded by London’s Metropolitan Police Force – a group of people that hold a special place in the hearts of any political activist these days what with spies, kettling and cavalry charges.

Thomas is a thorn in their flesh. Told he couldn’t demonstrate without submitting an application to do so one week in advance, he appeared every week at Horseferry Magistrates Court to lodge a request to demonstrate against whatever – people wearing woolly hats – and the following week requesting permission to demonstrate in favour of people wearing woolly hats. It was time-consuming and a waste of police time especially and illustrated the foolishness of the bye-law in question, one of 800 brought in under the draconian Blair administration.

The money came from the fact that, while attending an arms trade fair in London, he was stopped and searched. The police explained that it was because he had “the appearance of an influential person” and had walked past them “in an over-confident manner”. He sued the Met for wrongful arrest and they paid up £1,000, thus funding his Palestine/Israeli ramble. In his programme notes and tour flyer, he graciously acknowledges the Met’s contribution.

Thomas says he is non-violent but not a pacifist. He supported the intervention in Sierra Leone because of the genocide there. He votes Green, says the Lib-Dems are dead in the water and doesn’t even mention the Labour Party.

Ask him if he has a solution to the Israeli/Palestine problem and he says no: “Up to them. Not my job to tell them.”

His job is to both make us laugh and feel uncomfortable at the same time. It’s something he’s good at.

Mark Thomas is at the Empire, Belfast, on March 9th and the Academy, Dublin on the 10th markthomasinfo.com