The new Madness musical Our House has just won The Hilton Award For Best New Musical. Currently playing at the Cambridge Theatre, it is based on the songs of Madness featuring hits like Baggy Trousers, It Must Be Love, House Of Fun, and My Girl. Madness has been involved in the project since the beginning, but the show features a large cast of young actors playing fictional parts.
Madness man Suggs said: "I'm absolutely overwhelmed. Your mind is just filled with clich�s. You understand why people like Gwyneth Paltrow burst into tears and all that. I would never have imagined twenty years ago when we were sat around writing those songs in a smelly rehearsal room in Camden Town that one day, not only would be in a theatre in the West End, but that I would get an Olivier award."
Written by Tim Firth, the plot revolves around a young lad Joe (Michael Jibson) who commits a petty crime; he has the choice of two paths - to give himself up to the police or make a run for it � and the musical follows both. Firth has said �I've done nothing like this at all. I did a play with music about three years ago, but a musical of this scale - a massive multi-million pound production - is new to me.� Suggs said: "I think there's been a certain snobbery about taking songs that are already successful and making it into popular theatre. And I think getting this today proves that it doesn't mean the work isn't sophisticated, or entertaining or theatrical."
It beat stiff competition from the Andrew Lloyd Webber produced Bombay Dreams at the Apollo Victoria, the box office smash Chitty Chitty Bang Bang starring Michael Ball the London Palladium, and the musical by Boy George, Taboo, currently featuring the Boy himself, at The Venue.
Wonder if this will ever make the TMML?
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