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Mark Thomas

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Mark Thomas
Mark Thomas

Mark Clifford Thomas (born 1963) is an English comedian, presenter and reporter from south London. He first came to light as a support comic on the BBC Radio 1 comedy show The Mary Whitehouse Experience in the late 1980s.

Biography

Prior to his most renowned vehicle, The Mark Thomas Comedy Product, Thomas was the resident stand-up comic on Saturday Zoo, a Channel 4 comedy series first screened in 1993. He also presented the highly successful BBC Radio 1 talk show Loose Talk and is also a founder member of the London Comedy Store's hard hitting Cutting Edge show.

His political comedy shows, The Mark Thomas Comedy Product and The Mark Thomas Product on Channel 4 earned him criticism from politicians but were seen by critics as a crucial investigative tool. Leaving Channel 4 was a mutual decision, following a series of disputes over how far the channel would go in its broadcasting, one of which concerned the channel's reluctance to support actions concerning corporate accountability and corporate manslaughter laws - a cause he had campaigned for - which coincided with the Queen Mother's funeral.

Thomas has appeared at numerous comedy benefit nights, and is a well established stand up comedian in the UK. He is the Chairman of the Ilısu Dam Campaign, a campaign which was successful in temporarily blocking the development of a large-scale hydroelectric dam in southeast Turkey that campaigners claim will lead to the displacement of up to 78,000 people, mostly Kurds, without adequate compensation or consultation, as well as to environmental and cultural destruction.

Recently Thomas has been working with War On Want in India and investigating and filming human rights violations in Colombia (by, amongst others, Coca-cola [1]) where trade unions are targeted by militia allegedly controlled by the government. He continues to write a column for the New Statesman.

Thomas is married with a son and daughter called Charlie and Izzy.

A recent picture shows Thomas perched sitting on the leg of a statue of comedian Eric Morecambe, apparently one of his comedy heroes.

The parliamentary committee which oversees weapons exports, House of Commons Quadripartite Committee, commended him for his undercover work, which led to official warning letters being issued to a number of companies. [2]

Television programmes

  • Dispatches: After School Arms Club (2006)
  • Mark Thomas Comedy Product (later renamed The Mark Thomas Product) (1996-2000)
  • Thomas Country (1999)
  • Secret Map of Britain (2002)
  • Mark Thomas: Debt Collector (2003)
  • Mark Thomas: Weapons Inspector (2003)

Books

  • As used on the famous nelson mandela

Discography

  • Live (1998)
  • Dambusters (2001)
  • The Night War Broke Out (2004)

Trivia

  • He gave out the mobile phone number of former MI5 Agent David Shayler at a demonstration at the US spybase Menwith Hill in February 2001.
  • In an interview for The Guardian [3] in 1999, Thomas described himself as a "libertarian anarchist."

See also

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