MARK Thomas is not one to discriminate.

A firm believer in equal opportunity, over the years he has sued and pursued the Met, the Government and a posse of wrongdoers of the worst order with the same zeal and doggedness.

Between declaring war on arms dealers, breaking the Guinness World Record for holding 20 protests in 24 hours and pestering MPs into amending the law he still manages to squeeze the odd stand-up tour in his busy campaigning schedule.

So how does he juggle comedy and activism?

“With skill and absolutely wonderful adroit behaviour,” he deadpans. “What happens is that I get very annoyed about something and I start kicking off. I’m an accidental obsessive. I go off and do things and if something goes wrong I tell the audience. For me it comes down to a political thing about the powerful and the powerless.”

Top among his most recent achievements (as listed on his website) is costing the British Nuclear Fuels £1m in clean-up operations after exposing “irradiated pigeon sh*t”.

This little gem is sandwiched between his attempts to take the government to court over the Iraq war and his stint as New Statesman columnist.

His pursuit of justice and heightened sense of outrage have landed him in hot water, not to mention incurring the wrath of the authorities.

“I want the police to think I’m a pain in the a***,” he says boldly. “If they don’t, I’m not doing my job properly. I’m failing.”

His defence of the underdog turned personal when he discovered he had been branded a ‘domestic extremist’ and placed under surveillance by the Metropolitan Police.

He, along with five fellow journalists in the same predicament, has now launched legal action to end it.

“I think we’re going to end up in the European Court,” he adds matter-of-factly. “They monitor my book readings and gigs. There are people there watching.”

His new show Trespass is the product of his latest beef with corporations who, unbeknown to most people, have been buying up public parks and even streets and enforcing their own law on their ‘property’.

A lone crusader, he has set out to reclaim those spaces, testing the limits and reporting back to his audience.

“Private companies own these public squares and areas and, in these spaces, they have their own laws and security. It’s changing people’s behaviour. So I’ve been in a square dressed as a sheep to see what would happen. If something does, I come back and tell the audience. Once, I started handing out sweets in a public place and a security guard stopped me. I thought, ‘really, handing out sweets is illegal?’. That’s what the show is about. All these things we used to own have been sold out and it’s changing how we behave as a community.”

Bafflingly his peaceful acts of protest have earned him a life ban from six London streets “owned by Mitsubishi”.

Away from home, the London-born comedian has also made his mark. He was the first person to have “the dubious honour” of walking the length of Israel’s Separation Barrier, which marks the boundary between Israel and Palestine.

He has warm memories of being force-fed treats by hospitable Palestinians.

“We used to call it the Palestinian roadblock: you can’t walk anywhere without a complete stranger stopping you to have tea with them,” he recalls fondly.

When asked about his greatest accomplishment to date, he doesn’t miss a beat.

“It’s working as a performer for 30 years and still being able to breathe.”

Mark Thomas will perform at the Arts Centre on Tuesday, October 6 at 8pm. To book call 01793 524481 or visit swindontheatres.co.uk