The Mark Thomas Comedy Product

Mark began the new series with one of his most daring shows ever. Creating a fictional PR company Mark and the team booked a stand at Defendory International, a world arms fair in Athens, and proceeded to talk to the representative of dictator states about how their public face could be improved with a little PR. Using some toys Mark got generals of countries such as Kenya, Sudan and Indonesia to work together on describing how best to turn human rights abuses around to be good PR stories, and counter-act reports by pesky groups like Amnesty International.

After his stint at the arms fair the Indonesian generals were very interested in what Mark's PR company could do for their country. In fact, the Indonesians liked the set-up so much that they asked them to pitch for a six week media training course to teach the Indonesian Army the skills of PR. When the Indonesian Defence Attache, Colonel Halim, was really getting into the role of media manipulator he answered the following question: "Colonel Halim, do you accept that some cases of torture have been committed by the Indonesian Armed Forces?". He answered with "Yes, I can accept it..." That was a major admission on the part of the Indonesian military. Mark also looked at the friendly UK company Pains Wessex who promote themselves as a 'market leader in marine safety'. In fact Pains Wessex has supplied crowd control equipment to Indonesia, Zimbabwe and Zambia. It has also sought licences for the export of 19,000 stun grenades to Colombia.

Mark had noticed that the big thing about the new Labour government is that they love business. Unfortunately, Mark couldn't find anyone that would speak to him about the Labour government and business. However Derek Draper, the former aide to Peter Mandelson would speak to Mark for £600 and he explained that, "In business... no one gives a toss!" Mark then thought that he wanted to get a bit more for his money`s worth for his 600 quid and decided to ask Derek about Geoffrey Robinson and his relationship with The Labour Party: "Geoffrey is... is... is.. a very... er, interesting... and in a way, exciting person to speak to and be with, because he has an energy which both gets things done in a very productive way, but is also quite laid back. er... Geoffrey manages to be quite stately and almost slightly regal you might say. He got 12 million pounds off a strange Belgian woman!"

There were two topics in this week's show which were both linked to the same thing... The Public Sector Borrowing Requirement which encompases PFI (the Private Finance Initiative) In the case of The National Health Service, what happens is that all the old hospitals are sold off to property developers who then turn them into luxury flats, shopping centres, etc. who then sell them and make a fortune. In return they build a new hospital and rent it to the health trust.

The story behind this show started when some Cricklewood residents phoned Mark after they had discovered that British Nuclear Fuels Limited had decided to park trains carrying nuclear waste at the bottom of their gardens. Understandably, they were a bit miffed about this, just in case they suddenly ended up as extras in the new Hollywood blockbuster "Mummy, Mummy! Somebody's cooked the kids!" If you think that this may be a bit of an exaggeration then consider this... off the coast of Sellafield in Cumbria, a lobster was found that was 42 times over the limit that would be expected if there had been a nuclear accident.

In this show Mark decided that as so many business leaders want to be treated as celebrities these days that he should help out and treat them like icons by creating a "Businessman's Calendar 2000" that featured pin-ups of those role models who should be aspired to. Who better to start with, than Peter Mandelson himself, the person who initiated the whole thing... Mark waited four hours in a transit van to take Mr. Mandelson's picture for 'June'. Mark also wrote to Mohammad Al Fayed, and he agreed to pose for The Businessman`s Calendar and, entirely of his own accord, came along dressed in a quite bizarre costume, and chose to be 'January' as that is the month of his birthday.

In this programme Mark Thomas took a trip in a hot air balloon as part of a trial run for Menwith Hill Tours and tried to find out what Menwith Hill is all about.

The last show in the third series of The Mark Thomas Comedy Product was really 'a bit of a rag bag of a show' as it contained all of the stories that there hadn't time for, plus it also included some updates and other bits and bobs that had been going on...