As we race towards the the beginning of March and hopefully some warmer weather, we bring you the final MIS of February 2018.
News has been rather thin on the ground this week, but we’ve been pointed in the direction of two interesting YouTube videos thanks to subscribers Simon Walshe and Stephan Woss. Check them out in our Sign of the Times section, and while you’re there do click on the link to the full Mirror article covering Suggs. It’s a very interesting read.
Elsewhere, and a number of new items have been added to our Buy It section. So, if you do have some pennies kicking around you may want to add a few bits from here to your no doubt sizeable collections.
Finally, tickets have now gone on sale to see Lee Thompson at the 100 Club on 25th March. Check our our Showtimes section for further details.
See below for all forthcoming Madness and Madness related gigs and events. If there’s something we’ve missed off or you feel should be added then please let us know.
Madness
July 2018
The Stately Madness Tour
Friday 6th July – Englefield House, Reading – More Info
Saturday 7th July – Euston Park, Suffolk – More Info
Friday 13th July – Ragley Hall, Alcester – More Info
Saturday 14th July – Alnwick Castle, Northumberland – More Info
Friday 27th July – Galway International Arts Festival – More Info
July 28th/29th – Car Fest. Madness are currently listed on the event website as appearing a Bolewsworth Estate, Cheshire in July.
November 2018
Friday 30th Nov – Monday 3rd Dec – The House of Fun Weekender
Ticket hotline 08450261274 / http://www.butlins.com/madness
Suggs
What a King CNUT Tour 2018
A life in the realm of Madness.
Tue February 27 2018 – MERSEYSIDE Floral Theatre
Wed February 28 2018 – DUNFERMLINE Alhambra Theatre
Thu March 01 2018 – GLASGOW Pavilion
Sat March 03 2018 – HULL City Hall
Sun March 04 2018 – YORK Opera House
Tue March 06 2018 – PRESTON Guild Hall
Wed March 07 2018 – NORTHAMPTON Royal and Derngate
Thu March 08 2018 – SOUTHAMPTON O2 Guildhall
Sun March 11 2018 – BIRMINGHAM Alexandra Theatre
Tue March 13 2018 – AYLESBURY Waterside Theatre
Wed March 14 2018 – POOLE Lighthouse
Thu March 15 2018 – CHELTENHAM Town Hall
Fri March 16 2018 – BATH Forum
Sun March 18 2018 – NOTTINGHAM Theatre Royal
Mon March 19 2018 – IPSWICH Corn Exchange
Tue March 20 2018 – CAMBRIDGE Corn Exchange
Thu March 22 2018 – LONDON Palladium
The Silencerz Featuring Lee Thompson
Sunday 1st April – Dublin Castle, Camden
Saturday 17th March – Chandos Arms *details corrected*
Sunday 1st April – Dublin Castle
Lee Thompson
Sunday 25th March, The 100 Club. Part of the Sound Screen Festival. This is a performance plus a screening of One Man’s Madness. Tickets now available to purchase at https://www.wegottickets.com/100club/event/431666
Sat 24th March, 2018, Rose and Crown 10 birthday party – Walthamstow ** New **
Buy It
Suggs “My Life Story”, DVD Pre-Order
Release date 2nd March
Price £12
Director Julien Temple (The Great Rock n Roll Swindle, Absolute Beginners) takes a stage show, adds some drama, archive, animation and music, then shakes it all up for MY LIFE STORY where Suggs, takes a hilarious, yet moving, look back at his life in a musical form.
Is it a drama? Is it a comedy? Or a music hall dream? Whatever it is hold on to your seats as Suggs goes on to stumble and plummet through the trap door of failure; then trampoline back up to catch the passing trapeze of show business success.
£9.95. Limited to 250 copies. A5 paperback photo-zine. 36 pages.
Hanging Around Books’ tenth release (HA010), “Kimono Our House: Madness In Japan 1982” features rare and previously unseen photographs of the Nutty Boys taken by Andre Csillag at various locations during the band’s 1982 tour of Japan.
As Andre writes:
“In May 1982 I was asked by the manager of Madness, the late and sadly missed Matthew Sztumpf, to accompany the band on their first Japanese tour. These shots were taken over a period of a week in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, Nagoya and on bullet trains inbetween.”
“It was an intense week of gigging, travelling, promotional work and making history. While in Japan, the band had their first number one on the UK singles chart and were filmed live via satellite from Tokyo introducing the video for that week’s chart topper, “House Of Fun” — a first for the BBC and Top of The Pops.”
“Thanks to Graham “Suggs” McPherson, Cathal Smyth, Lee Thompson, Chris Foreman, Mike Barson, Mark Bedford and Dan “Woody” Woodgate for their time and the enjoyable madness.”
Andre Csillag, February 2018.
I Remember Way Back When
This week, MIS co-editor Rob Hazelby goes back in time to report on what was going on in the world of Madness 5 years, 10 and 15 years ago this week.
5 years ago…
Issue Number 720 – Sunday 24th February – Saturday 2nd March 2013
This issue got underway with us explaining that it’d been a quiet week in the world of Madness, and that we’d been scratching around to find news to pass in your general direction.
What we did manage to dig up was genuinely interesting, so it was definitely a case of quality and not quantity when it came to our content.
In this week’s edition of the MIS we brought you all the details of The Ska Orchestra MAY tour. Set to debut their first album, The Benevolence of Sister Mary Ignatius, the band were due to head off for three dates which would make their year touring schedule. We also had news beyond this including radio appearances and future rumblings. If you were a follower of the Ska Orchestra, this was essential reading.
Moving on, and it was over to Madness, as we’d learned that the band had just been revealed as headliners for the Friday night of the five day Henley Festival.
Madness were due to appear at 8.45pm on the floating stage. The black tie dress code, charity event that follows a week after Henley Regatta, was also due to feature on that date, band the Casablanca Steps, a fireworks spectacular, art music events, and a tribute to Tubular Bells.
Next, it was over to Paul Rodgers for one of his fabled Madness, Stats, Facts and Figures articles. This week we learned that;
“Oui Oui Si Si Ja Ja Da Da, as well as being a right pain in the arse to type, is the 68th best selling artist album of the year. Meanwhile Never Knew Your Name is the 66th song on the year to date airplay chart in the UK. With plays fast approaching 3,500 and a notional audience of nearly 92 million it is surely Madness’ best earning new single for publishing since Lovestruck back in 1999”.
Paul continued by telling us;
“On to this week’s charts in the UK and Oui Oui has fallen to number 83 on its 14th week in the top 100 and 16th in the top 200. It is down to number 9 on the indie albums chart on its 17th week. Complete Madness falls to number 20 on the same chart. Both albums will have been hit by the notable absence of Madness from the Brit Awards. Let’s face it they are not going to get a lifetime achievement award.”
Over to radio news now, and we reported that earlier in the week, Suggs appeared on the Chris Evans BBC Radio 2 show. Suggs talked about Madness, the new album, and his live solo show.
We bought the issue to a close with the news that for those readers who were fans of London band Man Like Me, their next album was due out on the 4th March.
10 years ago…
Issue Number 460 – Sunday 24th February – Saturday 1st March 2008
We were certain that although one or two of you may have still been there, for the majority of MIS subscribers your school days were probably nothing more than mixed memories of endlessly waiting for the end of the school day to quickly come around.
With that in mind, this issue took a distinctly school related approach as we gave a multi-article look at Suggs’ teaching challenge, where he returned to his old school to give the current pupils a taste of his songwriting prowess.
The show was aired on the since defunct Teachers TV, and provided a 20 minute showcase around the teaching skills required for teaching a music class of senior school children. Although useful for teachers it was also a fascinating 20 minutes for us Madness fans.
Elsewhere, we head how all the members of the band found their schooling days in a 1999 article from Later magazine. It was a lighthearted read, but really showed just how little most of the band thought of getting a decent education.
As well as that little lot we had news of TV’s Lorraine Kelly coming clean on her music tastes, admitting she was in love with Suggs back in the 80s.
15 years ago…
Issue Number 198 – Sunday 23rd February – Saturday 1st March 2003
A week after stepping on stage to receive the Olivier Best New Musical award for Our House, the show he and his fellow band members helped to create, Suggs then announced he was joining the cast of the show.
Collecting the award with the show’s writer Tim Firth, Suggs praised the young cast for their work ‘and making the award happen’.
Suggs was booked to play the role of Joe’s Dad, from Monday March 17.
The role was currently being played by ex-Eastender, Ian Reddington who would step down for a week to let his friend Suggs make his West End debut.
For those unable to watch the show for whatever reason, our largest section of the issue featured an entire transcript of ‘The Kumars at Number 42’, which featured Madness for the full duration of the programme. It took MIS co-editor, Jonathan Young many hours to put together, but for many it was well worth the effort.
Rob Hazelby
Sign of the Times
Madness star Suggs reveals his family are the ones who keep him grounded
The singer Graham McPherson (better known to millions of fans as Suggs), 56, on not taking anything too seriously, his ‘boring’ Sundays, and the love of his life…
Like any good front man, Suggs loves to wax lyrical, and once he’s in full flow there’s no stopping him. This morning’s bugbear, as he sips a strong coffee – ‘a Suggs special’ – outside a Camden café, close to his north London home, is pomposity. And more precisely, pop star pomposity.
“Being in a pop group is no better than being a f***ing milk man,” he says, plainly exasperated by self-regarding stars who believe their own hype.
Dressed not a million miles away from someone delivering your morning pint – black donkey jacket, black shirt, jeans and a cheeky grin – and a little greyer and craggier than in his 80s heyday, Suggs has chosen this slightly off-the-beaten-track Portuguese deli so he doesn’t have to deal with the constant selfie requests a busier location would invite.
And while we chat, the black and white cat crossing the adjacent zebra crossing – ‘my kindred spirit,’ says Suggs of the moggy – gets more attention from passersby than one of the 80s’ biggest pop stars.
Plus, according to his PA, the man who has performed with such swagger to millions of fans over the last three decades doesn’t like enclosed spaces. But despite the January nip in the air, he’s warming to his theme. ‘All we do is supply something that people want or need or like, but when you start taking yourself too seriously, that’s when it becomes a problem.’
The full article can be found via the link at the top of this section.
Driving in my Car Advert
Not sure if this has been mentioned, but a company I’ve never heard of to be honest have just put out their advert in the middle of Chelsea v Barcelona on BT Sport, and it uses a “modified” version of our Nutty Boys infamous Driving In My Car tune!
Following the link, looks like it’s been around since January, but I’m not one to be glued to the old tellybox, so it’s the first time I’ve seen it.
That’s just about it for this week’s edition of the MIS.
As always, we’ll be back next Sunday with the latest Madness news. In the meantime, if you spot anything newsworthy (and Madness related!) please sent it in and we’ll make sure it appears in a future issue.
