What the f**# are they singing about in opera?....

I first saw Mark Thomas back in the 1980s on my first ever visit to the Comedy Store in Leicester Square; he was one of a new breed of so-called alternative comedians and went down extremely well in the Saturday night cauldron that was the Comedy Store. Those gigs could go either way depending on the sort of crowd that was in that night. Basically the stand up comics had about twenty seconds to please the audience, to make them at least titter, otherwise they were told to get off by the baying audience and, if the heckles were bad enough, shortly after by the compere. I seem to recall that Mark Thomas' routine opened with him saying those immortal words "What the f**# are they singing about in Opera?!" But I guess you had to be there, it really was the way he told 'em! Thomas survived that scene and has moved on to TV investigative programmes, but always with that biting wit which saw him through the early days. He's on tonight at the Trinity Arts theatre in Tunbridge Wells, and I couldn't resist the temptation of buying a ticket for his performance; I think this will be the forth time I will have seen him live. Whatever you think of his somewhat lefty politics, he's guaranteed to have you in stitches; and that is definitely the only thing he has in common with the late Bernard Manning....