Screening of the 4K restoration of Madness' 1981 docu-comedy 'Take It or Leave It', directed by Dave Robinson.
Madness are coming to the Electric Palace cinema on Sunday 15 November, with a 4K restoration of Take It or Leave It, the band's own origin story. It first came out in 1981, so this is a fresh look at a film that's over forty years old.
It's a docu-comedy, shot wonkily on the streets of north London, and it's a self-authored one — the band wrote it themselves. Dave Robinson, who co-founded Stiff Records, directed it, and the lads improvised their parts. It follows them in their sticky rehearsal studios as they rose to fame, and lets hits like 'The Prince', 'One Step Beyond', 'Baggy Trousers' and 'Night Boat to Cairo' ride through. Stevie Chick of The Guardian called it "perhaps cinema's most honest depiction of the challenges involved in trying to get a band together."
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The restoration is rated 12A and runs for 87 minutes. It starts at 19:30 and finishes around 21:03, so it's a fairly short evening. Tickets are £12 for a standard adult, £10 for concessions — which covers senior citizens, the unemployed, disabled people, and anyone 21 and under — and £6 for children aged 3 to 14. There's also a £6 ticket for U21 members. You'll find it at the Electric Palace cinema, 39a High Street, Hastings TN34 3ER.
