Lee saxes up life story

Daredevil Madness star plays female opera singer in mockumentary of his rise to fame

’I had no one to push me into acting so I ended up as a cat burglar instead’

He has been the secret weapon at the heart of Madness, ever since the band emerged almost most 40 years ago. Self-taught saxman Lee Thompson penned some of their greatest songs including Embarrassment, Night Boat To Cairo and House Of Fun. And Thommo’s uproarious, daredevil performances have ensured he’s never far from the centre of attention.

Now, in his new mockumentary One Man’s Madness, Thompson – along with the band’s video director Jeff Baynes – charts his career in suitably hilarious and inimitable style. Wig-wearing Lee is a man of many parts in the programme, playing band friends, family, associates, TV musicologist Neil Brand – and doing a suitably extravagant turn as a female rouge-cheeked opera singer.

“I’ve always loved Peter Sellers, Spike Milligan, Danny La Rue, Dick Emery, Benny Hill... Alec Guinness, even,” he says. “They take on parts and there’s a lot of cross-dressing involved.

“One of my first memories of being on stage was at school. I played a headmistress in a school for naughty boys and girls.

“It got a really big round of applause. I thought, ‘I like this’.

But it never went any further.

“I didn’t have any acting lessons or anyone to push me in that direction. So I ended up becoming a cat burglar.”

Thompson made 16 court appearances and ended up in a juvenile remand home before Madness took off. The band saved him from a life in jail.

“My dad was in gangs who used to break into warehouses. They worked with explosives,” says Lee, 60. “He spent as much time in prison as you do in bed. A third of your life, it’s over, gone. And that rubbed off on me a bit.”

Madness and his acclaimed side project The Ska Orchestra keep

Lee busy.

But after straddling a lighting rig above the stage during a Norman Cook show, he’s reluctantly learning to curb his tendency to court mortal danger on stage.

“I was frogmarched out by the security. Rightly so, that’s the rules.

“My wife said, ‘You’re out of cat’s lives’. I can’t do it any more. I’ve got to come up with something else.”

■■One Man’s Madness DVD and CD soundtrack are both out now