Suggs tells us what life is like in his house
Being Exiled from the House of Sun persuaded Suggs to hit the road. The frontman with pop's most dysfunctional family, Madness, had turned 50, his cat had died and his kids had left home.
"I was in a bit of a bad way," he says. "The sunny days seemed to have passed."
Suggs will bring his latest show, My Life Story, to Dudley Town Hall tonight and to Telford's Oakengates Theatre tomorrow.
The hilarious yet moving, one-man tour de force, was written after Suggs decided to embark on a personal quest to discover what happened to the father he never knew.
Stunned by what he learned, Suggs was taken back to his childhood on the tough streets of 1970's Soho, and his first appearance on Top of the Pops at the age of eighteen.
The resulting show, which is part play-part comedy-part Music Hall, sees Suggs stumble through the trap door of failure then trampoline back up to catch the passing trapeze of show business success.
Suggs laughs, as he picks up the story. "I was lying in the bath on my birthday, nursing an epic hangover.
"Then I heard a crash. I jumped out of the water and there, lying amid shards of broken glass, was our four-year-old cat, a British blue called Mamba.
"I'd put up the glass shelf myself and it must have given way.
"I knew he was dead from the strange angle of his body. I couldn't believe it. I loved that cat.
"I was 50. My kids had recently left home and now the cat was dead. I was really upset.
"It triggered a deluge of emotion, an event that somehow tipped me over the edge. I began to consider my own mortality and, out of that, the idea for exploring my own past." Suggs will be accompanied by a lone pianist when he hits the stage this weekend, for shows that are part of a 48-date run.
He'll mix narrative, anecdote and song to reveal his life story in a stand-up memoir.
"Dad left home when I was about three. I have no recollection of him and he never featured in my life.
"My mum later told me she'd come home and found him with needles sticking out of his hands.
"Heroin was his drug of choice and it's a one-way street that takes you further and further away from real life. In the end, it did for the marriage."
Suggs moved to London with his mother before he moved to Pembrokeshire with his mother's sister, Diana, and her three children. Before long, though, he returned to the Capital.
He formed Madness and enjoyed one of the most successful careers in the history of pop.
The show reflects on Suggs' relationship with his father.
"He died aged 40 from drug-related conditions.
"So just as I was getting together with the band that became Madness, my father's time was up.
"I've always found that rather poignant."
