Veteran standup comic Mark Thomas, who usually writes his own material, is touring a show written by somebody else for the very first time. That ‘somebody’ is award-winning playwright Ed Edwards, who created England & Son especially for Mark - as the London-born comedian & political activist explains to What’s On...

Comedian and political activist Mark Thomas has promised to stay alert during our interview but admits it won’t be long before he enters the dreamlike state that kicks in once the adrenaline of performing has worn off. 

“I finished the show about half an hour ago, and I’ve managed to clean myself and wipe the sweat from my body,” he says, rather more graphically than I was prepared for. “What happens is the adrenaline lasts for about an hour and then just goes, and you’re in this post-dreamland state.”

We’re talking just after a performance of England & Son, a play written specifically for him by award-winning playwright Ed Edwards, a former circus performer who also spent three years in jail for drugs offences in the 1990s. Since his release, Ed has published a novel, worked on TV dramas including Holby City, Brookside and The Bill, and earned critical acclaim for The Political History Of Smack And Crack, a 2018 play that chronicled the damage inflicted on UK communities by the heroin epidemic at the height of Thatcherism.

One of the play’s most vocal admirers was Mark Thomas, who was waxing lyrical as he left the theatre, not knowing its writer was within earshot.

“I came out and said to my partner ‘That’s brilliant, that’s the best thing I’ve seen,’ and this voice behind me said ‘I wrote that.’ We started chatting, and that was how I met Ed. It was great - we got on like a house on fire. Ed would come and see gigs, and we’d hang out and go for late-night Chinese and curries wherever I was performing. We’d talk long into the morning about ideas and stuff we’d like to do.”

One of those ideas turned into England & Son. Based on characters from Mark’s own childhood, as well as Ed’s experiences in prison, the one-man play is described as merging disaster capitalism, empire, stolen youth and stolen wealth into the simple tale of a working-class boy ‘who just wants his dad to smile at him’. 
Mark couldn’t be happier with how the show has panned out.

“Ed’s a genius at how he unpicks false memories on stage; just a genius. I’m a really lucky man to have him writing for me.”

The play also makes use of Mark’s intense performance style. But while the similarity to his standup work makes it tempting to go off-script, the comic admits he has to maintain his discipline… most of the time.

“As we like to say, each performance has a jazz element! There’ll always be a bit where something happens. Somebody’s phone went off the other day and I’m like ‘Don’t worry, these things happen - turn it off.’ Then I’ll take the show back two lines and we’ll start again.

“Or when people come in late, you can stop and go ‘That’s alright, here’s what you’ve missed,’ and give them a little preçis. You can do that, you know what I mean?”

So it’s not onerously prescriptive?

“It is, but there are bits when I can break out of it, which is lovely. But you have to stick to the script - there are sound cues, lighting cues and a whole range of things. I have to be in the right place at the right time or the light goes on the other side of the stage and people are like ‘Why is Mark in the dark?’ 

“So there is a huge discipline to it, but I bring a certain amount of chaos, and that’s fine.”
It’s more than fine based on the glowing reviews the play garnered at this year’s Edinburgh Festival, winning a Fringe First award into the bargain. It’s Mark’s fifth overall, but one he’s especially proud of.

“It was lovely. Awards are really useful for all sorts of reasons. One of them is that when you do a bad gig and you come home, you can look at your award and go ‘No, I’m not sh*t.’ So that’s useful, and the other thing is that it helps get more people in to see the show - and I want as many people to see the show as possible, as I’m really proud of it.”

Since the play is little more than an hour long, the touring version - which stops off in Birmingham next month - won’t be expanded but will instead see Mark becoming his own opening act.

“Because Ed and I - Ed primarily - do workshops with addicts in recovery, we are writing a 20-minute piece about some of those addicts and sharing their stories - and that’ll be an opener before the play.” 

Mark also explains that the personal nature of England & Son makes it more suited to intimate spaces, which is why he’s playing multiple dates at smaller venues rather than one-nighters in bigger theatres.

“In Edinburgh we performed ‘in the round’ in this beautiful purpose-built theatre tent [Summerhall], which was just amazing. The great thing is that if you put an emotion out, you can watch it go through the audience. It’s brilliant; just so exciting. This play is ideally suited to smaller venues - once you get over two or three hundred people, you change the dynamic and it’s harder to reach everyone.”

He also admits his delight when he sees people visibly moved by the material.

“I love the fact that people come out and are shocked; that it has an emotional impact on them. I love that. I was chatting with a couple of people who were visibly moved by the show, and we were talking about their experiences with trauma, and there’s something really exciting about that. 

“Even if you’ve reacted really emotionally to something, that’s a really valid and important thing. Steven Spielberg would be considered one of the world’s greatest entertainers, and the idea that you’re supposed to just sit there and chuckle along gently is ludicrous. You’re supposed to go with the emotions.”

Mark’s enthusiasm for England & Son - which pulls strands of his activism, comedy and acting career into one piece - and collaborating with Ed (another project is already underway) has certainly put a spring in his step.

“It feels really good because I’m 60 and still trying out new stuff, seeing how far I can push things.”
He’s also hugely enthusiastic about the current state of comedy - “there’s some amazingly good performers… I really love doing circuit shows with them” - and despite his grumpy left-wing persona, admits he’s actually an optimist. 

“I’m optimistic that human beings have always got an ability to challenge and invent things and to change things. Things can improve, but it’s not guaranteed - you have to get out and fight for it. There’s a lovely quote from Studs Terkel, an American left-wing broadcaster, and the title of his book is Hope Dies Last - I love that.

“The notion that we know everything, we’ve got everything and that we’re all sorted... what a sh*tty old notion that is. I like the idea that the world is still full of adventure, and that life is still there to be explored and exploded upon.”

by Steve Adams

England & Son shows at Midlands Arts Centre (MAC), Birmingham, on Monday 6 & Tuesday 7 November.