Who had hits in the 1980s with songs about dysfunctional relationships, troubled schooldays, heart attacks, letting your family down and the traumas of family planning? I could understand if you plumped for Joy Division or The Smiths, but it was in fact the ‘Nutty Boys’ themselves, everyone’s second favourite group Madness. And it’s their ability to produce catchy, even jaunty songs about life’s everyday travails that makes them a good source for a pop based musical. Blackpool gets to see the result in October next year when ‘Our House’ meets the Opera House.
On the night of his 16th birthday, Joe Casey takes the girl of his dreams, Sarah, out on their first date. In an effort to impress her with bravado, Joe breaks into a building site overlooking his home on Casey Street. When the police turn up, a split-second decision forces him to choose between himself and his heart as the story splits in two: one which sees Joe stay to face the music, and the other which sees him flee and leave Sarah to run from the police. As two very different paths unfold before him, the consequences of that choice will change his life forever.
Tim Firth, the writer of Our House who also penned hits Calendar Girls and Kinky Boots said: “Madness are unique in that they wrote songs about home and hearth, about growing up, never growing up, having and not having, rising and falling. All this they did undercover of songs that fooled you into thinking they were just catchy, danceable and funny. This quality is for me at the heart of what musical theatre should aim to be.
In a sense, Madness started writing a musical 25 years ago. It was colourful, truthful, vibrant, witty and universal. It was just up to me to find it.”
Starring Blackpool’s very own Linda Nolan, the Olivier Award-winning show will run at the Opera House from Monday 9 to Saturday 14 October.
Tickets are now on sale priced from £15, and are available from www.wintergardensblackpool.co.uk.
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