Richard Strange is a pop-culture renaissance man who has moved from fronting pre-punk band Doctors Of Madness and hosting 1980s multimedia salon Cabaret Futura, to acting in Hollywood films and curating the National Review Of Live Art. And that’s just the half of it. We caught up with Strange as he tours An Accent Waiting To Happen, his evening of songs, stories and scurrilous gossip

Hi Richard, how’s the tour going?

It’s such a joy to be out on the road again after the last three brutal years of uncertainty, fear and restrictions. I am a performer first and foremost, and without an audience a performer is a man looking into a void, a black hole.

What prompted An Accent Waiting To Happen?

I have never really toured the show before. I have done a few isolated gigs but never got it into a shape where it works every night. I did a couple of shows in London last year and enjoyed them so much that I thought I should get out and reconnect with my fans of the last 45 years who have supported and sustained me through these dark times.

^{Doctors Of Madness performing in Finland in 2019}

You’ve always moved between different media. How much does An Accent Waiting To Happen relate to Cabaret Futura, which coincided with that early 1980s wave of alternative cabaret?

Well, some of the stories I tell are directly about Cabaret Futura, the club I opened in London and brought to Edinburgh in 1981 for a week-long residency as part of the Festival. As I recall, my guests then included a guy called Nick Cave with his band The Birthday Party (what an artist!), as well as Edinburgh heroes Richard Jobson, Everest The Hard Way and Jackie Leven. It was a time of radical change in people’s cultural habits, desires and needs. Music was moving away from guitar pop and post-punk into a number of interesting directions. MTV had just started and people could afford to make videos. Alternative comedy was big too. I had Keith Allen, The Comic Strip crew and The Young Ones cast all dropping in and performing. Some of the earliest bands I booked were Depeche Mode and Soft Cell while Shane McGowan was premiering his new band The Pogues. It was an exciting time as these bands were just starting out, and I was mixing them with poets, comedians, filmmakers and performance artists. I’ve always loved to juxtapose artists of different genres and media, and Cabaret Futura was my first foray into curating multimedia events.

Going right back, Doctors Of Madness were arguably both before and after their time in terms of style and theatrical presentation. With Cherry Red Records’ re-release of their back catalogue as well as the recent Dark Times album, how much have Doctors Of Madness finally found their moment?

Yeah, I always believed Doctors Of Madness to be a special, seminal band, unlike anyone else at the time. Remember, Bowie and Roxy had happened, but the music of 1974/5 was either prog rock or pub rock. And we were neither. We were difficult for journalists to categorise. Still are! The Guardian came closest when they described us as ‘the missing link between David Bowie and the Sex Pistols’. I’ll settle for that on my tombstone! Our followers and flag wavers from back then continue to come out and make themselves known, from Vic Reeves to Julian Cope, from Joe Elliott to The Damned, from Simple Minds to The Adverts and Ian Rankin!

I gather Doctors Of Madness played Falkirk, with Johnny & The Self Abusers (aka Simple Minds) supporting. How was that?

Aah, yes! The Maniqui in Falkirk. Great gig. Jim and Charlie of Simple Minds decided to form the band after they saw us supporting Be-Bop Deluxe in 1975. I think they realised that Johnny & The Self Abusers wasn’t the most commercial name around. At that time, Doctors Of Madness were the only band with a sizeable following who would dare to put these new young bands on the bill with them. Jim asked and we said ‘sure’. Other bands were either scared or dismissive of them, constantly saying ‘they can’t play’ when that was totally missing the point. They didn’t claim to be virtuoso musicians. They were just angry kids kicking against the establishment in the only way they knew how. Consequently, we were supported by The Jam in London, Skids and Simple Minds in Scotland, Joy Division in Manchester, The Adverts in the West Country and Penetration in the north-east. They knew we were their fellow travellers, even though we were five years older than them which is a generation in pop music.

^{Strange with current members of Doctors of Madness Mackii Ukei (left) and Susumu Ukei (right) in  Japan 2018/Picture: Keita Morita}

Last time you were in Scotland you were curating the National Review Of Live Art. Quite a lively affair, I gather?

That was such an honour in 2011 to be invited to curate the NRLA. I was given free rein to create a piece of work and invite artists from all over the world to participate in the flagship event. That was, unforgivably, the last time I was in Scotland. I used to have my second home in Edinburgh in the mid-80s, recording at Wilf’s Planet Studio on York Place, or Broughton Street with Jamie Telford from Everest The Hard Way. That band became Richard Strange And The Engine Room and we had a global club hit with a song called ‘Damascus’ around 1984. Edinburgh was a great place to hang out... if you didn’t mind the hangover after a night out with Alan Rankine, god rest his soul!

As an artist, you move between acting in commercial films such as Batman and Harry Potter one minute, to working with Gavin Bryars and Gavin Turk the next. How much are they all part of the same performance collage?

Well, as I say to my students, ‘there are two sorts of artists: those who say “yes” and those who say “no”.’ I say ‘yes’ and figure out ‘how’ as I move along. I fell into acting through a chance meeting with Franc Roddam (Quadrophenia) at Cabaret Futura. He introduced me to an agent, and within a couple of years I had worked with Jack Nicholson and Tim Burton on Batman, Neil Jordan and Bob Hoskins on Mona Lisa, and Kevin Costner and Alan Rickman on Robin Hood. I am the luckiest man alive, as anyone who comes to the show will hear. I am the only man alive who has worked with the Pistols, Jack Nicholson, Jarvis Cocker, Marianne Faithfull, Anita Pallenberg, Tom Waits, Damon Albarn, Harry Potter, and Gavin Bryars!

Your memoir Punks And Drunks And Flicks And Kicks came out in 2005. Obviously you’ve done a lot since then. Any thoughts of a sequel?

There is a whole lot more to tell. The cut-off point for volume one was 2001, when I was 50 years old and considered myself old enough to write a memoir (nowadays you’re old enough at 18!). But in the last 22 years so much has happened . . . doing the Lou Reed tour, The Black Rider tour with Marianne and Tom Waits, the NRLA, the Tate Gallery, Glastonbury, performing my 1981 concept album The Phenomenal Rise Of Richard Strange in its entirety, making a new double CD with TV Smith of The Adverts called A DFFRNT WRLD.

What should audiences who may not know your work expect from the show?

An irreverent romp through the last 50 years of popular culture by someone who has lived it up to his neck, illustrated with songs, film clips, stories, anecdotes, scurrilous gossip, and shameless name-dropping!

Richard Strange: An Accent Waiting to Happen is on tour until Friday 28 April.