Always welcome at Our House

Suggs and co turn their 80s ska beat into musical show.

TO a whole generation Suggs is simply "that bloke with the funny name off the Birds Eye fish fingers commercial on telly".

To an older one, which recognises the advert's soundtrack as being Our House, the 1983 Ivor Novello Award-winning song by Madness, the 47-year-old is an 80s ska/2Tone legend, with an impressive back catalogue of hits to his name.

Ridiculously catchy chart toppers like Embarrassment, My Girl, Night Boat To Cairo and One Step Beyond.

All feature in the West End musical Our House, which opens at the Edinburgh Playhouse on Monday, although the chances are that, subconsciously, you've already started humming at least one of them to yourself.

"That was always a great thing when we were young," laughs Suggs. "We used to get all the other bands going, "F***ing hate your songs, can't get them out of my head."

It was the timeless nature of those songs and the storytelling quality of their lyrics that made them so memorable, the very things that also made them the perfect basis for a piece of musical theatre.

"We'd had an idea of doing a musical for some time, probably since the mid-80s," reveals the Hastings-born singer, whose real name is Graham McPherson. "I remember Ian Dury did one and then The Squeeze did one – we always thought that our songs could stand up to that theatrical treatment because they are pretty narrative.

"If you think, One Step Beyond, you're off; Baggy Trousers, you're at school; My Girl, you've got your first girlfriend; Our House, you've got your first home; It Must Be Love, and so on and so on."

They might have had the idea in the mid-80s but it wasn't until 2002 that Our House premiered at the Cambridge Theatre in London's theatre-land.

Suggs continues, "We realised that writing a musical was a lot harder than it seems. Obviously, we do what we do, and we do it quite theatrically as a band, but when it came to choreographing, doing arrangements and directing and lighting, well.

"In fact, we were very lucky in that we got a lot of great people onboard, especially the writer Tim Firth, who sat down with all of us and said, 'Right, tell me all the stories you want to talk about,' and then amalgamated all our lives into one little character."

And so the tale revolves around Joe Casey. He's 16 today, that makes him a man, doesn't it? Time to impress Sarah, the girl he loves, but how? And so he commits a petty crime – together they break into a flat. That's sure to impress her, isn't it?

"When the police arrive, however, the teenager is faced with one of those crossroad choices that everyone faces at some point of their life. Stay or run.

A fast-moving romantic comedy, Our House follows the two courses Joe's life could have taken. The first, had he stayed to face the music; the second, had he bunked the law and made a run for it. "The temptation would have been to have the story of Madness," admits Suggs, "but instead, it is an amalgam piece through the eyes of one kid who grows up in Camden Town and does all the things that most of us did, and ends up in a bit of trouble. Then he gets the choice to do the right or wrong thing in life."

The current tour sees Steve Brookstein, winner of the first series of ITV's X-Factor, make his stage debut as Casey's dad – a role played by Suggs himself on the West End. He is joined on stage by actress Gwyneth Strong, best known as Cassandra in the long-running BBC sitcom Only Fools and Horses, as the mum.

"It was very strange," says Suggs, recalling his appearances in the show back in 2003, "because the dad is a ghostly figure who comes back to help his son make the right decision. It was quite bizarre, I was like an old man looking down on all these kids playing my songs. It was a really strange thing." Stranger still was the opening night, which Suggs refers to as 'unbelievable'.

"Who would have thought that seven smelly kids from Camden Town would have had their own theatrical performance with a proper director and everything?" he says, as if still finding it hard to believe.

"I went to see it a lot and it was a bit like . . . I don't know what it was like, but it was a very emotional thing."

Remaining true to that first production, the current tour is staged by the original West End creative team, directed by Matthew Warchus, designed by Rob Howell and choreographed by Peter Darling. At its heart, however, are the songs. So just what did make them so special?

"There are a couple of things," Suggs suggests. "We weren't interested in fashion. It wasn't fashionable to write a song about a house in the middle of a street or about going to school or driving a lorry or whatever – we just wrote about our lives.

"When you write about the small things in everyday life they become universal, just as much as writing about saving the planet or whatever else – a man in Rio de Janeiro can relate to having a house in the middle of a street. And we were having a really good time. I think that resonates. We were enjoying it – we weren't influenced by anyone else."

And they are still enjoying it, 32 years after the core members of Madness first got together as The North London Invaders. Suggs joined them a year later and, after a couple of name changes (The Invaders and Morris and the Minors), they settled on the name Madness in 1978, scoring their first chart success with the Lee Thompson composition, The Prince.

The band were then regulars in the charts until 1986 when they went their separate ways. Six years later they reformed for Madstock.

In 1999 they released their first original album in 14 years, Wonderful, after which another six years passed before their next CD, The Dangermen Sessions Vol 1 saw thew light of day.

The six-piece are currently working on their forthcoming album, The Liberty of Norton Folgate, due for release in the autumn.

"At this very moment I am in rehearsal with those smelly toe-rags and the new albums is coming along great," says Suggs, with a laugh. "But it's funny, the timelessness of those early songs is a heavy weight because if you are going to come up with a new song between Our House and It Must Be Love, it's going to have to be a pretty good song, one reason why we have spent two years writing this album – we're getting there."

Just like Joe Casey, who is sure to make the right decision . . . isn't he? Find out next week.

• Our House, Edinburgh Playhouse, Monday-Saturday, various times, £12-£28, 0844-847 1661