Mark Thomas 'The Manifesto' comes to Reading Friday 22 January 2010 at 8pm

Award-winning comedian and activist Mark Thomas returns to South Street Arts Centre to deliver a progress report on his year of campaigning on the laws his audiences voted for in their "Manifesto". It will be at South Street on Friday 22 January 2010 at 8pm


Every show is unique and new material is added every performance. Mark creates a manifesto - a policy paddle to help steer our way out of the utter financial mess we're in. Every audience gets to vote on the policies they like, Mark road tests them and then sets off to make them happen. It is somewhere between 'Jim'll Fix It for anarchists' and White
Collar Crimewatch, with a passing nod at Bill Drummond, the Fluxus art movement and Anneka Rice.

So far, policies voted through include introducing a national maximum wage, getting the government to give everyone the day off on their birthday, legalising homosexual marriage and getting the church to shut up about it, a three-day weekend, land instead of the dole, IRA honour guard for Thatcher's funeral, no new blasphemy legislation (or anyone who can see the Virgin Mary in a tree stump should be sued under it) and the introduction of the prohibition of deception law, making it illegal for MPs to knowingly lie. It shall be known as ‘Archer's law’.

Policies chosen so far are;
- All politicians should be forced to wear the names and logos of the companies which sponsor them
- Anyone who supports ID cards should be banned from having curtains
- The introduction of a law making it illegal for MPs to knowingly lie. It shall be known as Archer’s Law
- All models should be picked at random from the electoral register

The People’s Manifesto will outline 50 policies of the manifesto shouted out in bold type on a page to themselves with Mark's commentary opposite. Mark has even ‘road tested' some of them - like hosting a party in an MP’s second home (which clearly belongs to the taxpayer) and getting university boffins to work out a way of SAT testing MPs to rank them by value.

After 23 years of performing, six series of the Mark Thomas Product and Mark Thomas Comedy Product with Channel 4, numerous documentaries, two books, radio programmes, changing the law on tax, secretly filming torturers, stinging arms dealers with school children, exposing abuses of civil liberties and corporate skulduggery. He also has in the ast backed the Green Party.

www.markthomasinfo.com

Tickets £15, Concessions £10 Subject to booking fee