Biography
“If you have never heard the Doctors of Madness, you should. Musically they are the Velvet Underground, New York Dolls with shades of glam, hippie, prog and punk all rolled into one, yet are still totally original. Vastly underrated, they should have been huge. Pure genius.” Vic Reeves
Since his proto-punk band The Doctors of Madness first hit the headlines in 1975, the musician, actor, writer and adventurer Richard Strange has worked in every field of the performing arts. Richard has continued to write and record songs, release CDs, appear in films and onstage around the world, make videos, curate Live Art events, write a memoir, and play live concerts.
He has recently participated as a singer in a number of concerts organized by the celebrated American Producer/Arranger Hal Wilner, most notably Stay Awake! a programme of Walt Disney songs, which was performed at London’s Royal Festival Hall as part of Jarvis Cocker’s Meltdown Festival, and also in New York. The shows featured Grace Jones, Nick Cave, Steve Buscemi, Pete Docherty, Shane McGowan, Jarvis Cocker and Beth Orton. He also sang at Wilner’s Rogues Gallery, an evening of Sea Shanties at London’s Barbican Theatre, in July, alongside Tim Robbins, Shane McGowan, Martha Wainwright, and Suzanne Vega.
Richard played the legendary Glastonbury Festival in 2009, showcasing the album The Phenomenal Rise of Richard Strange in its entirety. And 2009 also saw Strange and his long-time collaborator, the multi-instrumentalist David Coulter, together onstage at London’s Barbican Theatre, as part of the ArtAngel project “The Plague Songs”, with Rufus Wainwright and Damon Albarn, among others.
Ever an innovator, he worked alongside Coulter and the artist Gavin Turk on designing and fabricating a new musical instrument, a car-horn organ, for Damon Albarn to feature in his Chinese opera production Monkey.
He composed the music for the short film The Blood Road, directed by Temple Clark, and a score for the Contemporary Dance company Protein Dance.
Last year he re-opened Cabaret Futura after a 30 year hiatus, performed Anna and The Witch’s Bottle at the Barbican’s Surreal House exhibition and he curated this year’s New Territories International Festival Of Live Art in Glasgow.
In 2011 he was invited by The Tate Gallery to chair a panel discussion on Watercolours at Camp Bestival Festival.
Strange has collaborated with the award-winning artist Haroon Mirza on the film/installation project “Regaining an Element of Control” and the performance/installation work “A Sleek Dry Yell”, for which he wrote all texts.
In November 2011 he curated Cabaret Apocalyptica for Late At The Tate, to tie in with the Tate Gallery’s exhibition John Martin and The Apocalypse, and the same month was invited by Hong Kong Design Institute to be Creator In Residence.
This year he composed the song “Blood Brother” for the closing credits of the forthcoming US movie Dark Hearts.