Mark Thomas - Trespass – Marine Theatre, Lyme Regis, Friday October 9

Some things in the modern world are so ridiculous they make you want to either laugh or cry. One of these is the slow privatisation of every institution, service and plot of land in Britain.

Thankfully radical comic Mark Thomas’ latest show Trespass evokes the former reaction.

Following on from his 100 Acts of Minor Dissent tour, and book, Mark takes on the selling off of his home city of London. One part warning, one part comedy, Thomas makes us laugh while reminding us that if we don’t stand up, it may soon all be gone.

Mark traces the steps of several protest walks and actions he has engaged in recently; Disregarding a ‘No Loitering’ notice on the Thames footpath - put there to ‘protect’ a gated community - by holding the most nationally endorsed form of loitering, a fete; pacing miles along an exclusion zone outside RBS’ headquarters in London – ‘they’re making a fuss over the distinction between private and public,’ he quips; and being banned by the Mitsubishi corporation from entering Paternoster Square while dressed as Shaun the Sheep – a place publicly accessible since Anglo Saxon Times; and holding a comedy event on public land, gated off from its rightful owners by private security but still partially accessible, much to the dismay of jobsworth security guards.

He goes to extraordinary lengths to ensure these protests fall within the law, but despite this is harassed by London’s finest, the MET, and finds himself listed as a domestic extremist, and ‘alleged comedian’.

Later he challenges the misuse of PSPOs – Public Spaces Protection Orders. He chalks a line around an area of Oxford earmarked by the council where they intend to, as Mark puts it ‘criminalise people for being’. Buskers who do not smile, beggars and those sleeping rough are facing on the spot fines or court if they cannot pay.

His enthusiastic, animated and punchy anecdotal style invigorates the audience and brings out the fist raising, beret wearing, placard waving protester in even this distinctly middle class bunch.

Trespass made me furious as frequently as it made me laugh, but this is not to Thomas’ detriment. His shows are intended to ignite strong feelings, and simultaneously offer light-hearted – but not ineffective – solutions to what he sees as the big problem of our age: the packaging up and selling off of everything that was once, and should be, commonly owned to the increasingly small pockets of wealth in the world.

I was not the only audience member who was inspired by his call to unpredictable activism.

Tom Dale