Mark Thomas (I)

The best combination of music, humour and real-life drama I heard last week was on Radio 4. Mark Thomas, known for political comedy, gave us Bravo Figaro, his standup show from last year's Edinburgh festival. Since then he's taken it on tour, apparently, though it had passed me by. I feel very lucky to have stumbled across it on late-night radio.

Essentially it was a short journey around his dad, Colin - "the rudest man in south London" - with Mark being funny and truthful, and peppering his tale with recorded interviews with his family. We knew that Colin wasn't well from the start: the show opened with the sound of him breathing and talking with difficulty, his wife, Mark's mum, fussing and chattering around him like an anxious sparrow. Mark performed with bombast and to-the-gut honesty; the show rattled along like a juggernaut. You were breathless keeping up. Every time you thought Mark was showing off, he called himself out. Every time you found yourself turning his dad into a cute character, Mark confronted you with what was real. The story, with all its stories within, was brilliantly told.

When Colin had been well he'd loved opera, and quite unbelievably Mark found himself in a position to get Royal Opera singers to perform in Colin's bungalow. Which they did, and we heard it, and it was great; but that wasn't what left the punch to the heart. That was done by Mark, who closed the show by acknowledging that this was a staged goodbye to his dad, that the real end would be "messy and smell of fear" and would lack the delight and beauty of this, his wonderful, powerful tribute. And then the programme ended and the announcer told us that Colin had died that morning.

Mark Thomas originally devised Bravo Figaro (Monday, 11pm, Radio 4) for the Deloitte Ignite series at the Royal Opera House. It's an hour-long performance devoted to the story of his father Colin, an opera-loving builder. We are so prone to stereotyping people and their musical tastes that the idea of an opera-loving builder is far more surprising today than it might have been in the past. More important to the story is Thomas's description of his father as "a word that cannot be used on Radio 4".

The temptation is to say Colin "was" all the above but he's still alive, albeit severely handicapped by progressive supranuclear palsy. Thomas makes it clear that, because of his father's history of domestic violence and the lack of warmth between them, "this is not a story about forgiveness and redemption". It nonetheless culminates in his well-connected comedian son bringing professional opera singers to perform in Colin's retirement bungalow in the course of taking, as he freely admits, a very sad situation and making a piece of entertainment out of it.

Thomas has the hard-breathing attack a monologist requires and varies his line and length enough to keep you listening. What's interesting about the programme as radio is the way his sleeve-tugging delivery is regularly interrupted by lo-fi recorded interjections from his father, mother and members of his family, pulling him from the brink of grand gestures that hit the dress circle, back under the low ceiling of life.

Mark Thomas pays homage to his father

As Thomas makes clear too, his family are no strangers to being used as material for his shows.

Stand-up Susan Calman is mostly noted for her appearances on The News Quiz. However this new late-night show, Susan Calman is Convicted, gives the Scottish comic her own platform to get on her soap box.

In the first episode, Calman looks at civil partnerships and gay marriage. Calman is gay herself and in a civil partnership, not that she calls it that as she constantly refers to herself as being married. She talks about her sexuality, how she wants to be able to get married, and the problems she had with her own civil partnership, which included the fact that marriage couldn't be mentioned during the entire ceremony for legal reasons. Come to think of it, this opening episode couldn't have been better timed for Calman, following the vote on legalising gay marriage being passed in the House of Commons.

But concentrating on the show itself, there's a lot of it I liked, most of which wasn't really concerned with the theme. There were all sorts of odd tangents, like when she talks about her love for her three cats, which includes dressing them up and giving each of them their own jingle.

The problem programmes like this and Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation (which starts its ninth series at the end of the month) is that there's a danger of them getting too preachy. It's true that these kinds of shows won't be for people whose politics are right-wing, but in my experience right-wing people tend to be more "laughed at" than "laughed with", which is why there's never been a right-wing equivalent of Mark Thomas. The problem's that people think that those who are "laughed at" are electable (see Boris Johnson).

If you don't mind the preachy nature of these kinds of programmes, however, you'll get a lot of enjoyment from a performer like Calman.

'Look at the bloody size of it!' marvels Peter Kay as he runs on stage at the O2. It feels a little disingenuous, because Kay is arguably at the front of a pack of comedians who have been aiming this high from the start. The second part of this fascinating three-part series examines the process behind these startling new comic trajectories. Via a dig around in the BBC's written archive (Frankie Howerd was on 80 guineas a series) and Frank Skinner's brush with pay-related tabloid infamy, we reach the present day.

Comedy historians will probably dub our era The McIntyre Ascendancy. But has edge and artistry been lost as careerism wins the day? Or is it naive to think that stand-up was ever about anything other than a drive towards commercial success? Reassuringly, Mark Thomas is on hand to suggest than comedy has 'fallen for the capitalist concept of endless growth'. But the hyper-competitive Comedy Store bearpit we visit at the end suggests that many young comics still think there's a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Mark Thomas interview

The investigative comedian tells how he turned the spotlight on his own family for his latest show...

This three-part documentary series, narrated by journalist Eddie Mair, looks at the 'darker', money-making side of the comedy world.

The first episode looks at how many comics, in particular stand-ups, make money by performing at corporates. It shows performances from The Real Variety Show where comics play in front of business people keen on booking them for events.

Then it follows the world of adverts, discussing comics like Mark Arden and Stephen Frost (who did ads for Carling Black Label) to QI creator John Lloyd (who first met Alan Davies when Lloyd directed ads for Abbey National.) I know there's a history of comics doing adverts - despite the public outrage at Mark Watson a few years back - but I was suprised at the frequency of appearances. Most of the ads were produced 'before my time' as it were, so were quite shocking in a way. Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie advertising tobacco?

It's definitely a growing trend, though; if you're feeling bored, you can play a little game where you try to spot how many times in a three-minute period you can hear the voice of Hugh Dennis.

Off all the people on Funny Business, though, the most interesting was Rhod Gilbert. Rhod explained how one corporate gig resulted in him sacking them off altogether, and how he justified doing adverts for the Welsh tourist board because he was promoting a country rather than a product. There were also interesting contributions from Mark Thomas, who attacked just about any involvement of comedians and advertising. The only advertising I can think that he has been involved in was with early episodes of The Mark Thomas Comedy Product, which were sponsored by small independent shops - like a gentlemen's hairdressers and a record shop.

Funny Business declares that the problem with advertising is that there's no funny ads. I can't help but think the problem's that there are ads to start with.

Adam Buxton, Ed Byrne, Stewart Lee for Union Chapel

Stewart Lee, Ed Byrne, Mark Thomas and Adam Buxton are heading to Islington's Union Chapel over the next few months as The Invisible Dot launches its spring season of comedy.

'We've all become Thatcher's children,' reckons jobbing comic Hal Cruttenden, who merrily makes something like two grand a gig on the corporate circuit. Mark Thomas, naturally, begs to differ. And that's the beauty of this opening episode of a three-part documentary: it takes a very timely look at the business of comedy - bigger than it's ever been, surely - from all sides. It's also very funny, especially when established comedians, who undoubtedly deserve credit for even discussing the issue, grapple with their consciences as they explain themselves for doing what some might regard as selling out. A corporate gig is good practice for working a tough audience, says Jo Brand; doing adverts (or 'content-driven engagement platforms', as one suit now calls them) buys writing time, protests John Cleese; Rhod Gilbert, meanwhile, has bailed out of them altogether, his nerves and self-image unable to take it any more. The astronomical fees may simply reflect supply and demand, but it doesn't make the reality any more edifying. Engrossing, nonetheless.

Top 20 comedy shows in London - January

Featuring Sean Lock, Adam Riches, Rob Newman, Al Murray, Phill Jupitus, Baconface, Mark Thomas, the Improvathon and more...