WRITER, activist, comedian and Fringe favourite Mark Thomas presents his new show at Edinburgh’s Traverse this month. Titled Check Up: Our NHS At 70, it’s based on interviews with experts and patients. In it, Thomas, aged 54, asks, if he makes it to 84, what will the NHS look like at 100? Before hitting Edinburgh, he tells us about his day.
I HAVE a strict order to my day until 10am, then it’s a steady decline till dusk and I end up eating spag bol with chopsticks.
Up at 7.00am, put on stovepot of strong coffee, take dog to top of garden for his morning ablutions, coffee, put porridge and water on, say goodbye to daughter “blah blah, nice day, blah blah love you, blah, good time college”.
Walk dog. There is a homeless guy by the pond called Jess* and a heron comes and stands next to him every day to be feed. That heron easily stands next to his chest. Won’t let anyone else feed him. I always go and see him; I really dig hanging out with the heron.
I find money on the ground every other day on the walk. It goes in a jar when I get home. End of each year I get a shirt with that money. I call them my “street cash shirts”.
10am work. Current show has involved me doing a residency at the Imperial Group, four NHS hospitals in West London, so head to Paddington on the tube. Forty minutes of listening to music. Kamasi Washington is my current favourite so lots of cool jazz nodding in my seat and glances from fellow passengers that say, “Get a job mate”.
Then the residency. Clean hands by soap dispenser. Hang out with doctors. Clean hands. Chat to patients. Take notes. Clean hands. Realise I am possibly going to miss train to the gig. Rush to train or tube. Carrying stage clothes, wash kit, computer and stuff. Run down escalators. Run up them. Just make the train, jumping on moments before the doors are locked. Passengers’ glances seem to say, “How can someone look so sweaty but smell so strongly of hand cleanser?”
Find gig, do a tech run through, coffee, iron my shirts. Do gig. Wash.
Afterwards I always go and sign books and talk to the audience. If I do a bad show there is no-one at the book stall, so I stand by myself holding a large Sharpie trying not to look like Donald Trump waiting for a piece of passing garbage to sign and make law.
Van home. I have held a host of random and urgent matters at bay for the duration of tech run and the show and now in the quiet of the tour van and with the remnants of adrenalin charging around my blood system the “Brain Dump” takes place.
It is a mixture of singing, sentences started but unfinished, swearing, reading road signs out loud in a Russian accent, talking filth in Edna Mode accent, improvised songs, bad jokes, finished sentences, more swearing and notes to self. That’s the Brain Dump.
After an hour of Brain Dump it is music time. Lots of Kamasi Washington played loud on the finest speakers known to Kendall Van Hire. At some point I will say, “I am just going to shut my eyes for a minute”.
Home. Haven’t unloaded dishwasher. Sit on sofa eating spag bol with chopsticks. Watch Glow or Brooklyn Nine-Nine with dog.
*Jess is not his real name.
Check Up: Our NHS At 70, tomorrow (August 5) to August 26 (not Aug 6, 13 and 20), various times, £21.50, £9.50 to £16.50 concs, Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh. Tel: 0131 228 1404. www.traverse.co.uk www.markthomasinfo.com @markthomasinfo #OurNHS70
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