"This is not about fathers and sons," says comedian Mark Thomas in this solo storytelling show. But how could it not be? A picture of Thomas's father, Colin, dominates the stage, making his son look small. During Thomas's childhood, Colin loomed large over family life. He was a barely literate, workaholic, self-employed south London builder with a streak of violence that made itself felt at home. "He swore like a jazz bebop player: essentially Cleo Laine with Tourettes", and had an unlikely passion for Rossini and Verdi.
On an almost bare stage, Thomas conjures this contrary, contradictory, larger-than-life man in vivid detail, including an account of how he would sit on the sofa watching Steptoe and Son with his trousers around his ankles so his soiled work clothes didn't touch the furniture. "There was no bigger bigot than my dad," says Thomas, who went on to become one of the leading lights in the alternative comedy scene of the 1980s and declared war on racism and homophobia. In talking about his father, Thomas is always revealing himself.
"This is not a story about forgiveness," says Thomas, and it's not. It is about the messiness of family life, how it's possible to love someone and yet hate everything they stand for, how the past shapes us and how accommodation can be as crucial as reconciliation. It's a little show, and Thomas hasn't yet quite found his theatrical voice, but it has lots of heart. By the time we get to a bungalow in Bournemouth where Thomas Sr now lives – a shell of a man, with a degenerative disease – it's quite clear that this heart is a gift, in more ways than one.
