In the first show of the first ever series, Mark appears to have been trying to prick the pomposity of some of our elected Members of Parliament whose ego's are a bit too big. Mark dressed up in a bear suit and interviewed several MPs - Seb Coe, David Amess, and David Martin.
In this show the team made a visit to McDonalds, and Mark mentioned that the Export Credit Guarantee Loan Scheme (revisited in series 4 and series 5), run by the Department of Trade and Industry, had ensured that exporters to Iraq were paid when Saddam Hussein defaulted on his payments.
In show three, Mark stood for Parliament at the Hemsworth by-election.
In show four, the team did a tour of London, including a few works of art on the Conditionally Exempt Works of Art List.
Show Five was the one with Mark taking a look at MI6 (or was it MI5?) and visiting a Tory 'special interests group'.
In the last episode The Mark Thomas Comedy Product sponsored the 2.30 from Doncaster on the 23rd of March. They named the race the Mark Thomas Chum Special Handicap; it cost £1200 to sponsor. As a sponsor they could have two banners erected around the track. Mark's favourite one, FREE OATS THIS WAY and an arrow pointing in the opposite direction of the race was unfortunately put up after the finish line. As we used up all the money the crew had nothing to eat and Marks mum had to make some cakes for them.
We decided that for too long the business and employment record of Harrods and House of Fraser owner Mohammed Al Fayed had been held against him, and decided to set an example by queueing up at the Harrods sale in order to ask him for a job.
The Lord Mayor's show is the biggest procession in the world. In 1996 it boasted over 65 floats, 21 marching bands, 22 carriages, 200 horses, 5,000 people and the Lord Mayor's 240 year old gold State Coach. It is also a huge great moneyspinner for the City of London. To enter a float in the 1997 show cost £2,500+VAT, and is basically a chance to do some off-the-wall advertising and marketing. The event is broadcast round the world live on the BBC World Service channel, broadcast live on BBC1 and Capital Radio.
The programme where we had to get our facts *exactly* right. Mark had a laptop PC by the side of the stage all the way through the recording of this programme just to make sure he didn't get anything wrong. Otherwise, in his own words, "he'd have had lawyers crawling out of his arse from here to eternity".
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...
Mark Thomas goes undercover as a farmer to find out what really goes on within countryside groups.
Mark Thomas investigates why parts of the UK are fenced off, and in some cases not even shown on any maps.
With America and Britain pushing the UN to put Hans Blix's weapons inspection team into Iraq, Mark Thomas forms a citizen's weapon inspectors team in order to examine the performance of the two super powers. Starting with Buckingham Palace the group go round a lab in America making anthrax, a nuclear submarine base and a military weapons store just off the M4.
Post war Iraq is bust. The country owes $383,000,000,000 to various companies, banks and countries from loans/credit which it took to build palaces.
I can think of no finer act of citizenship than students exposing the government's failure to control the arms trade. Mark Thomas puts the arms trade under the spotlight in this special edition of Dispatches, asking how easy it is to broker arms. Working his way through a spider's web of vast and, in some cases, archaic legislation, Thomas unearths a series of dangerous loopholes, inconsistencies and, even more shocking, simple omissions that would have the most avaricious arms broker salivating with glee.
In this special for Channel 4's "Dispatches" documentary series, Mark Thomas investigates the accusations of exploitation of workers, human rights violations, environmental damage, and questionable business practices by Coca-Cola. Looks at its suppliers and operations in India, South America and the US.
Recorded in 1995. Location: Balham, London, England, UK
