BNP members to publish their family ancestry. An age of consent to be applied to religion: no under-16s allowed. In a better world, these would be the policies to revitalise Gordon Brown's torpid government. In fact, they are fantasy measures suggested by Mark Thomas's audience, as the standup and activist compiles a People's Manifesto.
Half comedy gig, half thinktank, the evening lacks the inspiring narrative of Thomas's shows about his campaigns against the Ilisu dam and the arms trade, but it has a likeable, democratic spirit. Let's face it - any show that proposes Bring Me Sunshine as the new British anthem is going to prove hard to resist.
Every night, the audience votes a new policy into the manifesto; the comedian then strives to bring it into effect. Tonight, he feeds back on his research into the suggestion that everyone in the UK might simultaneously declare themselves bankrupt. And he screens slides of his efforts (as per another manifesto commitment) to claim MPs' second homes as public property - his set is decorated with a rose pruned from Margaret Moran's garden earlier in the day.
Not all the audience contributions are as entertaining; several are nimby-ish or trivial. But at its best, this gadfly conclave delivers the Thomas message that resistance isn't futile. Witness the copper obliged to rip Thomas's illegally retained DNA profile into tiny pieces, then hand the scraps over in a plastic envelope.
Here's hoping that the policies Thomas floats tonight (a maximum wage, a three-day weekend, invade Jersey to reclaim stolen tax revenues) come to even half as triumphant a conclusion.
