Review: Mark Thomas, The Comedy Box

As the events of the past year have shown, things are extremely unpredictable these days in this Brexited, Trumped-up world of ours. Anything can happen, it seems, at any time.

Which is what Mark Thomas is basing his current show on. In A Show That Gambles On The Future he asks his audience ‘hive mind’ for predictions of what will happen in the next two to four years, and riffs on some of the answers.

Thomas is then placing a bet on the results, although Paddy Power’s special bets department will be tested in the extreme by some of the more niche wagers.

In between ad-libbing on the audience’s forecasts Thomas, in his inimitably passionate and rapid-fire delivery, takes us through a trawl of his past life and relationship with his domineering, religious-firebrand builder father, while hitting on the enemies we share.

So yes, obviously Theresa May and the Tories get it in spades – while Trump is almost an afterthought, such is the ridiculous pomposity of the man. There are scores of forecasts about the demise of the former and the assassination of the latter, although Thomas favours the prediction that Trump will wander off into the Arizona desert of his own accord.

While Thomas’s anger at May and the Tories is hilariously animated, his spittle-flecked, sweat soaked rant against those Old Testament anti-sodomites the Democratic Unionist Party (“The only party who can’t go anywhere without banging a drum”) is truly marvellous. In stark contrast, he is positively beaming at the hope and optimism of Corbyn – “the only Labour leader I’ve stood on a picket line with”.

This being Bristol, there are forecasts that the city’s traffic problem will never be sorted, that cannabis will be legalised and sold in the Post Office (or ‘Pot Office’ as Thomas renames it), and that an artisan vegan sex toy shop will open on the ever-gentrifying North Street. Thomas returns to this throughout the evening, bemused and tickled by it, even though he admits that he himself has moved from working- to middle-class (“shit conversation but better food”).

The winning forecast, though, to judge from the cheer volume, is for a ban on all public advertising in Bristol within the next four years. A sensible conclusion to the latest stellar performance from our sharpest and most innovative political comic.

Before he ends he reminds us of his first joke as a boy, touchingly shared with his father and centred on Steptoe and Son, which they used to watched religiously together. “So, if you haven’t enjoyed tonight, blame it on Steptoe and Son.” As if, Mark…

Mark Thomas performed A Show That Gambles on the Future at the Comedy Box at the Hen & Chicken on Thur, Nov 2 and Fri, Nov 3. For forthcoming Comedy Box lineups, visit www.thecomedybox.co.uk

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