Mark Thomas: Showtime from the Frontline
Thu 8 Mar to Sat 10 Mar 2018
PLAYHOUSE
£20 - £10
Name the comedian who might say “I wonder if I can set up a comedy club… in a refugee camp... in Palestine?”
Of course, it’s Mark Thomas. And that is exactly what he tries to do.
Dodging cultural and literal bullets, Israeli incursions and religion, Mark and his team set out to run a comedy club and put on two nights in Jenin in the West Bank. Only to find that it is not so simple to celebrate freedom of speech in a place with so little freedom.
Mark tells this story alongside Faisal Abu Alhayjaa and Alaa Shehada, two performers, actors and now aspiring comics from the Jenin Club. This is a story about being yourself in a place that wants to put you in a box. Funny, moving and necessary. Mark says, it’s the nearest he will ever get to Alan Parker’s Fame.
★★★★★ “One of Britain’s greatest storytellers”
The Scotsman on Mark Thomas
Presented by Lakin McCarthy in association with Theatre Royal Stratford East
Alaa Shehada, Mark Thomas, Faisal Abu Alhayjaa
Photograph: Lesley Martin
Company
Director Joe Douglas
Reviews
Mark Thomas: Showtime from the Frontline
★★★★★
“Intelligent writing and giggle-inducing anecdotes… a side split-tingly funny show…It finds light where there is darkness… I sincerely hope this show receives the recognition it deserves”
Mark Thomas: Showtime from the Frontline
★★★★★
"It feels like a direct descendant to the popular and political theatre of Joan Littlewood… A genuinely vital piece of theatre that doesn’t aim to answer if theatre or comedy can change the world but proves that it can certainly seriously annoy those in power"
Mark Thomas: Showtime from the Frontline
"Charming and funny in equal measure… Showtime From the Frontline is another triumph in Thomas’s clever line in activist theatre. Yet again, the self-defined ‘libertarian anarchist’ comedian delivers politics without the polemic"
