Mark Thomas, Swindon Arts Centre, Old Town, 01793 524481

I was first hurled into Mark Thomas’s dissentious universe seven years ago. My date had suggested the activist cum comedian’s show for our first rendez-vous; so neither of us having actually heard of the man, we plonked ourselves down rather awkwardly on fold-up chairs at the Pleasance in Edinburgh, throwing side glances at each other and itching for Thomas to emerge and put us out of our misery.

It was make or break and thankfully, perhaps in no small part to Thomas’s natural ability to put his audience at ease, the night was a success and we are still together today. So it was with a pinch of nostalgia that we returned, in a pilgrimage of sorts to see the man whom we like to think brought us together, after a relatively poor start and haphazard courtship.

His latest crusade, or show at the Arts Centre, was intriguingly titled Trespass.

One thing you need to know about Mark Thomas is that he is relentless. He picks a cause or as he puts it a cause picks him, and he turns into a dog with a bone. Given the following of fans that he has accrued over the years, it is fair to say his zeal is contagious.

His most recent act of ‘subversion’ involved single-handedly reclaiming London, its public spaces, highways and footpaths, which, he believes have being bought up by greedy corporations. Mark says that even if they don’t own them, they make damn sure to discourage anyone’s attempts to use them.

And he would know, if his tales of stand-offs with security guards outside the Royal Bank of Scotland headquarters, flouting all sorts of supposed legal bans, trespassing on to public squares, staging punk concerts on the bank of the Thames and colonising footpaths through mass ‘loitering’ are anything to go by.

Among his many achievements the campaigner and human rights champion is a consummate loiterer. He certainly enjoys extolling the virtues of his new-found hobby.

Behind the hilarious diatribes and impassioned speeches is a man on a mission, a man with an incredible gift for storytelling, unflappable convictions and undeniable powers of resilience. Years have not mollified him and he spews out harsh political and social truths with the same verve and comic flair as ever. Thomas is a rare, and let us hope not dying, breed.

Marion Sauvebois