COMEDY fans who think of Robert Newman as nothing more than a long-haired fop who does little more than lark about with David Baddiel on The Mary Whitehouse Experience will have another think coming this week.

Not only has the long hair been shorn to be replaced by a decidedly more grown-up look, but Rob's comedy has grown up too.

His new show, From Caliban to the Taliban - 500 Years of Humanitarian Intervention, tells the story of a 500-year global terror campaign waged with goodwill to all.

It starts with a 1609 Bermuda shipwreck and takes us through government spies to Filipino vampires.

The story has a 'happy ending', in the United States' good works in Vietnam, Guatemala, El Salvador, Somalia, Chile, Afghanistan and Iraq which, says Robert with perhaps the smallest touch of irony, have made the world safe for democracy and given us that optimism about the future which we all enjoy so much today.

Robert is an anti-globalisation campaigner and reported from Seattle for Channel 4 throughout the World Trade Organisation protests.

He went to Prague for the IMF/World Bank protests and was involved in the campaign against the Terrorism Bill.

At last year's Alternative Labour Party Conference he spoke alongside Susan George and George Monbiot. He also writes for a national newspaper and for the underground and radical anti-capitalist media.

Robert Newman's show From Caliban to the Taliban, 500 Years of Humanitarian Intervention is on at the Theatre Royal Winchester on Thursday. Performance: 8pm. Tickets: £12. Box office: 01962 840440.