Mark Thomas is a man who gets things done. His last live show campaigned against the construction of the Ilisu Dam in Turkey. Thomas won and the main firm involved in the project backed out. This time, he sets his sights on war in Iraq, so George Bush and Tony Blair could yet be thwarted.
The subject has been exhaustively explored (and joked about) recently, so Thomas's new set doesn't have the blazing individuality of its predecessor and he diffuses the focus with more generalised activism anecdotes. But the show is still a rousing call-to-arms, packed with remarkable tales of what happens in Britain when you dare to take the powerful to task.
Thomas sold 1,200 tickets over two nights at Warwick. His achievement has been to humanise, and so popularise, direct action. Tonight, he tells several hilarious demo stories. There was the time he invaded RAF Fylingdales accompanied by characters from Star Wars. And the time he was arrested, then de-arrested, six times while blocking traffic on Whitehall. But his funniest routine recounts the mess he got into threatening Bush's life in his New Statesman column.
Like his US counterpart Michael Moore, Thomas makes a point of being "us" not "them", and his show makes comic capital from the awkwardness that mild-mannered people feel making dramatic political gestures. There is a running joke about the toll his activism takes on his family life. "What have you done?" his wife asks him, again and again
But over all this, the shadow of war looms. As well-informed as ever, Thomas asks why no one is talking about the sanctions that have killed half a million Iraqi children in a decade, or about the west's bombing raids on Iraq since September 11, 2001. He announces his latest wheeze, which is to threaten Blair, Jack Straw and Geoff Hoon with prosecution for culpable assistance to war crimes. Thomas's experiences, hammering away at the Establishment coalface, do not just make you laugh, they make you eager to join in.
· At the Roadmender, Northampton (01604 604222), Monday, then touring.
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