AS THE stage at the Anvil goes black, there is a man sitting on a throne in the darkness. As the light comes up it reveals the frontman of iconic ska punk band Madness.

But this isn’t Suggs as you’ve seen him before, sporting a crazy wig and a white mac, the Cockney singer starts off on a tirade about Cnut the Great.

What relevance does this have to the Madness vocalist? Not a lot, apart from it sets up what is set to be an entertaining night of stories, anecdotes and several laughs at the expense of Brian May.

What A King Cnut: A Life In The Realm Of Madness, starts with Suggs telling a story of his near three-day bender at Glastonbury, with his standing on stage with a silly wig and being brought back to Earth by keyboard player Mike Barson.

The show darts around visiting different stages of Suggs’ life, from petty theft as a youngster to being spat at by Liverpool fans during the Champions League semi-final, the Madness man has lived an extremely eventful life.

For only his second ever one man show, Suggs commanded the stage like a seasoned pro – being part of one of the most successful British bands will do that – but his timing of storytelling and punchlines was done to comedic perfection.

Like any good comedian, Suggs found a theme and ran with it, unfortunately to his detriment that subject happened to be Brian May’s hair – something which got a huge round of applause at the end of the show.

It wasn’t all laughs and messing around though, at the heart of Suggs’ story was his mother’s search for his estranged sister, which was a very moving and human element to the show.

And not to leave his fans going home empty handed, the songwriter even slipped in some Madness classics for good measure.

Whether you are a fan of Suggs and Madness’ music or not, you can’t deny the man is entertaining and that is what he did that night, thoroughly entertained his audience.