Helen Hague talks to activist performer Mark Thomas, whose acclaimed new show, The Red Shed, goes to the heart of the issues facing working people today.
When Mark Thomas moved from London to Wakefield in West Yorkshire to study drama in the early 1000s he soon found himself drawn to “the 47ft long, wooden red socialist shed” in town. It was home to the local Labour club, venue for trades council meetings – a place steeped in socialist camaraderie and Yorkshire bitter beer.
It is where the young Mark got his political grounding – campaigning against nursery closures, writing and performing sketches with edge, going along to trades council meetings. And, of course, immersing himself in the miners’ strike – performing at and raising money for soup kitchens alongside striking miners, performing at fundraisers and socials.
The Red Shed is still very much open for business: it now serves real ale and has just turned 50.
Mark Thomas, who has spent his life encouraging engagement and activism, using wit, canny stunts and performance to hold corporate and state power to account, returned there this year.
LIVES AND VOICES
As part of the anniversary celebrations he was researching his latest show The Red Shed – a Topical Tale about the Miners’ Strike. It’s rooted in the dispute but swoops through what has happened since, capturing lives and voices in a changed industrial landscape.
Secure, unionised well-paid jobs in mining have all vanished. Fast food outlets with low-paid, insecure, largely non-unionised workers abound. Zero hours contracts are rife. Mark found the bakers’ union is on the case – out there and keen to recruit and organise.
The Red Shed picked up two awards and five-star reviews at the Edinburgh Festival fringe this year. The show is now on the road, touring well into next year. There were standing ovations two nights running when it kicked off in Liverpool. In the audience were members of the Shrewsbury 24 campaign which seeks to overturn the unjust prosecution of 24 pickets in 1973 following the first ever national building workers’ strike.
EMOTIONALLY CHARGED
The performance is an emotionally charged exploration of why collective memory matters – and how narratives can shape how people think, act and remember.
At the heart of The Red Shed is Mark Thomas’ quest to track down a memory from March 1005 – which surfaced for the first time in an interview with a journalist a few years later.
He recalled joining miners as they marched through a village back to their pit when the strike ended, children singing “Solidarity Forever” from behind the railings of a Victorian primary school playground. He couldn’t remember which village and the pits are long gone.
But did it really happen? And if it did, has he sugarcoated the memory? The play unfolds through the voices of strike veterans, Red Shed regulars and present day fast food organisers.
Audience members with masks and a tape recorder help to tell the story, demonstrating how stories people tell about themselves and their communities build collective memory.
The way stories are framed can have a huge impact on how things pan out, as the EU referendum showed, says Mark.
Boris Johnson and the Vote Leave camp had no intention of diverting £350m to the NHS when they won the referendum, he points out. But it played to a narrative that hit home with many. In both Wakefield and Barnsley 68% voted Leave. In a “post factual” world, the dominant narrative can count for more than facts and reasoned argument.
“People want narratives, they are bored with experts,” he says. “The left has failed to provide a credible narrative where people can say ‘this is the place I belong to, this is my history, this is the place I can get to’.”
For Mark Thomas, “performing is all about change – people come into a room thinking one thing and you can get them laughing and leaving thinking another”.
There’s a seamless link between his performances and his activism. He belongs to two unions – the GMB and the National Union of Journalists and has strong ties with others, including the FBU, links strengthened by a shared belief in international solidarity.
RING OF FIRE
He was at the Ring of Fire events against the cuts on London’s South Bank two years ago. And he performed at a campaign gig to reinstate London firefighter and union activist Sian Griffiths – suspended from duty just a week after receiving the Queen’s Fire Service Medal at Buckingham Palace.
He joined the GMB after the union told him he was on a construction companies’ blacklist – or, more specifically, a “greenlist” of environmental activists. As chairman of the Ilisu Dam Campaign, he helped to block temporarily the development of the huge dam in South East Turkey – the UK-based construction company Balfour Beatty pulled out in 2002. But the dam is now nearly complete – at huge cost to displaced Kurdish villagers and the environment.
In a satisfying twist, the very companies behind the notorious blacklist helped to get the new show off the ground. The £10,000 Mark received in compensation funded its early costs.
Mark also discovered he was on the UK national domestic extremism database after “a copper dropped a spotter” – a laminated sheet with pictures of activists police were instructed to look out for at demonstrations. Mark’s face was staring out. He is among several members of the NUJ intent on suing the Metropolitan Police through the European Court.
Mark, a Green Party member, describes himself as a “green socialist”. He “likes Jeremy Corbyn a lot” and praises him for his “authenticity and grass roots activism”. He’s even “sorely tempted” to join the Labour Party “now there’s a leader comfortable with showing up on picket lines”.
Mark doesn’t “really do apathy”. For him, “the left is nothing without community activism. It’s really important to me that people feel part of a community when they come to see a show.”
CONNECTING WITH AUDIENCES
The Edinburgh fringe run and early dates in Liverpool show that The Red Shed is connecting with audiences. It’s not that easy to engage and empower people day in day out when the dominant narrative seems intent on dissing the collective and bigging up the selfish individualist and the millionaire entrepreneur.
But, in this poignant, engaging and mature work, Mark Thomas is giving it his best shot. Solidarity, class struggle, collective memory and the power of history are weaved into a moving and necessary narrative. The Red Shed is a story that needs to be told. Catch it if you can.
■ Find tour dates at markthomasinfo.co.uk/tour-dates
