Dundee, buckle up – Madness frontman Suggs is coming to Our House.
The ska legend will stop in at Dundee Rep Theatre early next year as he tours his one-man show, Suggs: A Life In The Realm of Madness.
From fighting vertigo on the roof of Buckingham Palace to fending off a thief trying to steal an urn of ashes, Suggs (real name Graham MacPherson) certainly has some mad stories to tell.
The 2022 tours follows on from his hit My Life Story tour, and in Suggs’ words: “If the first show was about how on earth I got to where I am, then this one is about what happened when I got there.”
A story told in words in music, with the help of trusty pianist Deano, A Life In The Realm Of Madness will weave Madness songs, Suggs’ own tracks and anecdotes from the North London musician’s extraordinary life.
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Ahead of the tour, Suggs told Richard Barber his rock steady home life with wife Anne balanced the rollicking early success of Madness, saying: ““Fame doesn’t really interest me.”
But interesting or not, fame has given him a repertoire of interesting stories with which to delight audiences up and down the country.
“A couple of weeks before the Diamond Jubilee, I’d said something disparaging on the radio about Brian May’s hair. It triggered a tsunami of angry tweets from Queen trolls,” he said.
“A few days later, Anne said to me that I’d been sent a letter from the Queen. I said: ‘What? They’ve got their lawyers on me, have they?’ ‘No,’ she said, ‘not Queen. It’s from the Queen.’
“Well, of course I didn’t believe her. But it turned out to be an invitation for Madness to perform at the Jubilee concert at Buckingham Palace.”
Remarking on his weird and wonderful life, Suggs says: “I’ve always been waiting for a tap on the shoulder and to be asked: ‘What are you doing here, sunshine?”
“It’s surreal really, to look back at 12-year-old me compared to everything that’s happened since. Madness, you might say!”
The Life In The Realm of Madness show is coming to Dundee Rep on January 30 2022.
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