One of Britain’s most prolific comedians is touring again this February with Showtime from the Frontline, about the difficulties of setting up a comedy club in a Palestinian refugee camp. As Fedor Tot finds out, it’s not easy…
Mark Thomas is perhaps too politically furious and polemical to earn much currency in the mainstream of standup comedy, but for a particular set of hardcore fans, his prolific writing and touring ensure his work is a font of smart standup. His latest is perhaps his most ambitious yet; he tells of how he attempted to set up a comedy club in a refugee camp in Jenin, Palestine. How the hell did that come about? “I’ve been wanting to set up a comedy club in Jenin for a while. I kinda have a history of working in Palestine and in 2009-2010 I walked along the length of the West Bank Wall. That’s when I met the Jenin Freedom Theatre, which is a theatre company in the refugee camp there.”
He was immediately bowled over by it; “I thought it was brilliant that there was a theatre in a refugee camp. It defies our expectations of what refugees are: they are more than just a paltry vision that we put upon them, the idea that a refugee is just kid with a begging bowl and Bob Geldof stood beside them. People have aspirations, they have creative impulses. Four years ago I was over there doing book readings in the West Bank. I went up to the people at Jenin Freedom Theatre and I was really lucky to arrive on the first day of rehearsals for this play, The Siege, about a siege in the Church of the Nativity. It was really thrilling to see the creative energy that went into telling a story about resistance and defying an occupation. That’s where it started. I just blurted out ‘we should do a comedy workshop’. I spent three years building up trust and ideas on what we could do, and I went over last year with a friend of mine, and we ran it for nearly a month. We put on two nights, which have now been replicated without us.”
Considering that standup is a tradition specific to Western culture, rooted in vaudeville and music hall, how did it translate with Palestinians? “People don’t go out much. They tend to stay at home or have friends round. There are arts centres in the West Bank, but the idea that you go out for an evening doesn’t really happen. The theatre is regarded as something that’s alright for kids. But it’s interesting, when The Siege was on, that was packed. They thought ‘this is our history, our story’. When they put on Animal Farm, people got quite upset.”
In a sense, the show is about the very purpose of comedy. “[We wanted to] create a show about what it is to put on a standup show, which relies on spontaneity, freedom of speech and of expression, in a place where that’s frowned upon… I want people to be able to hear the voices of the two young men I’m working with, Faisal Abdualheja and Alaa Shehada. We can make a show that changes people’s perceptions of what it’s like living under military occupation”
It doesn’t sound like an easy show to put together, not helped by Mark’s defiantly independent stance; “The way I do things, no one comes along and gives me grants or money. If I’m gonna bring two Palestinian kids over and have them working, then I must do that. Every part of that production, raising the money, talking to the people in Palestine, negotiating with them, getting the visas and fucking passports sorted out, I have to make sure it happens. I haven’t got an option of ‘I think I’ll phone in sick’.”
Inevitably, considering the political charge of Mark’s style, our attentions turn to the type of comic that’s filling up these tucked-away places, and whether the political edge that Mark Thomas’ generation brought to comedy in the ‘80s, alongside Ben Elton and Alexei Sayle, has dissipated. “What’s interesting is that there is an increasing amount of politics coming into standup but it’s about identity. That’s perfect for standup. It’s about the politics of racism, of sexuality, of gender. When you get more people, more women or say, more gay people performing, that’s really exciting, because actually that’s inherently political.”
Showtime From The Frontline, Sherman Theatre, Cardiff and Volcano Theatre, Swansea, Weds 21 – Thurs 22 Feb. Tickets: £20/£15 conc. Info: 029 2064 6900 / 01792 464790