AFTER walking the wall in the West Bank, becoming Guinness World Record holder for political protests, and chasing arms dealers around the country, one of Britain’s most acclaimed comics and influential activists, Mark Thomas, turns his attention to matters closer to home with a show about his father in his latest award-winning, critically acclaimed show.

First commissioned by London’s prestigious Royal Opera House, Bravo Figaro is the true tale of Mark’s father, a self-employed builder with a passion for opera, his degenerative illness, progressive supranuclear palsy, and Mark’s attempt to put an opera on in a bungalow in Bournemouth. It is about love, death, fathers and sons, and the search for peace in an imperfect world, with a few gags thrown in for luck.

With six series on Channel 4, numerous awards, several television documentaries, three books, a Guinness World Record, sell-out tours, a published manifesto, a series on Radio 4, writing for various publications, producing charity benefits, a Medal of Honour, secretly filming torturers, stinging arms dealers, battling multinational corporations, exposing abuses of civil liberties and corporate skulduggery, and succeeding in changing some laws, these are just a few of the things that have kept him mildly busy over the last few years.

January 31 - February 2, Bristol Tobacco Factory; Saturday, February 16, Oxford's North Wall; Tuesday, February 19. Swindon's Arts Centre and Wednesday, February 20 Chipping Norton's Art Centre.