James Rampton on comedy

A magazine psychologist was set the task of reviewing Mark Thomas's XXXX-rated video. He concluded that the comedian had "a missionary zeal to say the unsayable". Many people in power would no doubt agree with that assessment - judging by the list as long as your arm of complaints Channel 4 received about The Mark Thomas Comedy Product. Driving a tank thinly disguised as an ice-cream van round to William Waldegrave's house and asking him how it can be exported will not win him friends in high places, but it makes for corrosively funny comedy. Thomas's stand-up act is similarly abrasive, full of graphic references your granny - and maybe even your girlfriend - wouldn't like. He is also one of the last comedians on the circuit who dares to utter the "P word" - politics - and can get away with it. His Torython raffle, raising money with crappy goods for the reportedly impoverished Conservative Party, is just one of many moments where Thomas's political comedy has a point. He may have only polled 122 votes when he stood in the Hemsworth by-election as the candidate for the Mark Thomas Friday Nights Channel 4 Party earlier this year, but for comedy with attitude he gets my vote.

Mark Thomas is playing at: Oldham Royton Assembly Hall (0161-911 4072) tonight; Brighton Gardner Arts Centre (01273 685861) tomorrow; Coventry Warwick Arts Centre (01203 524524) Mon; Spalding South Holland Centre (01775 725031) Thur