Theatre News

Madness’ Suggs Tours Live Solo Memoir Show

Madness front man Graham ‘Suggs’ McPherson has embarked on his first solo show, a stand up memoir, that “hands the audience an access-all-areas pass to the backstage windmills of his mind”.

Telling the story of his 30-year career spanning pop music, radio, television, film Live Suggs sees the star attempt to unravel the unsolved mysteries of his life and go in search of the father he never knew.

The show plays a series of one-night engagements, visiting Woking on 29 May, Brighton on 31 May and Kingston on 1 June 2011.

Catapulted to fame at the age of eighteen from a tough London childhood, Suggs fronted Madness through its rise in the ska and rave scene to become one of the biggest selling bands of the 1980s, their subsequent break-up and early 90s come back.

As well as his live music performances, Suggs produced and took a role in the 2002 Madness musical Our House directed by Matthew Warchus which enjoyed a 10-month run at the Cambridge Theatre and won the Olivier Award for Best New Musical.

For Live Suggs he appears in a more intimate audience with a show billed as a “witty memoir with the same humour, spirit and genial madness that make him and his band so enticing live”. There is also the promise a musical aspect with “occasional musical accompaniment and pointless interjections from his loyal pianist-cum-manservant”.