How would you react if someone you knew and trusted turned out to have been spying on you for a major arms trading company? If you’re Mark Thomas, you turn the experience into an hour-long comedy show.
That probably reads flippantly, to say the least, but uncomfortable as it is at times to watch, ‘Cuckooed’ is a very funny show about a serious, indeed deadly, business. One which makes a great deal of money not only for those involved and their shareholders, but also for H. M. government.
Mark Thomas has been seriously involved with the work of Campaign Against the Arms Trade, the principal lobbying group on the issue, for several years. For a number of those years, he was close to a man known here as ‘Martin’, who was subsequently discovered to have been supplying BAE Systems (significant arms manufacturer) with copies of emails emanating from Campaign Against the Arms Trade offices.
By creative (in the best sense) use of video footage, Thomas recreates his days as an anti-arms trade activist, using taped interviews with some of his fellow protesters to relive his outrage that someone he regarded as a friend should be accused of betraying the organisation.
Thomas’ sense of bafflement as well as betrayal is palpable, as ours ought to be. What he does, however, is point out the fascination of the well-played confidence trick, suggesting that ‘Martin’s’ motivation may have had more to do with the sense of power his role gave him rather than any financial reward (his appears to have been negligible).
It’s an effective way of obliquely approaching the profounder questions ‘Cuckooed’ throws up but lacks the time to fully tackle. Thomas’ own career in disrupting and disturbing the more dubious aspects of the arms trade has already been documented in his book ‘As Used on the Famous Nelson Mandela – underground adventures in the arms and torture trade’ (Ebury Press, 2006).
This is vintage Mark Thomas – seriously funny in all the best senses, and as he so often is, bang on the money.
Traverse Theatre, 2-24 August times vary (see Fringe programme for details),£19/£14 concessions/£8 unemployed.