Mark Thomas: 40 in Stand-Up Years

Mark Thomas is coming to HOME on Wednesday 18 November, with the show starting at 20:00. He's celebrating forty years in the comedy game, and the night is billed as a retrospective of his particular blend of stand-up, storytelling and political activism.

If you're not familiar with the name, he's spent much of his career as something of a comedy guerrilla. He's built a following on his own take on governmental and corporate exploitation, and he's well known for a kind of creative mayhem that's gone beyond the stage: his troublemaking has changed laws, cost companies millions and annoyed the people who most deserved it. It's that streak of activism that sets him apart from your standard stand-up, and this retrospective looks back over the four decades that have defined it.

The critics have had a fair bit to say about him over the years. He's been called 'one of Britain's greatest storytellers' and 'the most intelligent of the modern leftist stand-ups', and one described him as a 'polemicist' whose comedy carries a weightier purpose than just getting laughs. That's a good summary of what he does: the jokes are there, but they're usually working towards something larger than the punchline.

The show is part of HOME's Autumn Theatre Season 2026, so it's one of several things they've got running across the season. It's a single-name bill, with Mark Thomas as the sole feature. The show runs on Wednesday 18 November at 20:00 at HOME in Manchester.