Hi Chrissy,

Madness have always had a fantastic video taste. The music videos for Driving in my Car and Uncle Sam are almost like little short movies. How difficult was it to produce the videos and what were the sets like? I imagine there must have been a big staff supporting the band in getting the vehicles( e.g the car that drove on the water in Uncle Sam) and gear stuff all over to the special places, because lots of the videos have been produced outside and with many costumes..who´s resposible in the band for the video making and directing..? is there a special person coming up with an idea? And i imagine that a lot of money is involved too..what was your fave video shot and can you also tell me your fave TV show that Madness appeared in? (Kenny Everett, The Beat Club, Children in Need, Old Whistle etc..) (I saw Chas acted really wild in the old Beat Club appearanced in the 80´s in Germany) and my last question would aim to the songs like Mummy´s Boy, When Dawn arrives and Close Escape with the sexual aspects in it…did you get a lot of letters from prude parents in the 80´s…(ha…) lots of kisses
Jean

Dear Jean
Uncle Sam was organised by a guy called John Mills who had done a lot of stuff with us in the earlier stiff years. He did a great job with a limited budget on Uncle Sam. A lot of the ideas in the videos were mine or Thommos. Thommo provided his own wardrobe in the Hiawatha scene with Chas which was hilarious, especially when Thommo smashed the plates on Chas’s head and stormed out. Well Thommo borrowed his sisters leather dress. Which sums it up. I don’t know my favourite video shoot they were [mostly] all fun. TV show hmm mostly a lot of hanging around. I would say the best were The Tube, TFI Friday, and more recently Later. Due to the fact you play live on those shows and the atmosphere is always really good. The songs you mention were all album tracks so they didn’t get that much airplay. If they’d been singles, who knows?
thanks CB