Richard Strange

Richard "Kid" Strange (born in January 1951) is an English actor, writer, musician, and curator, who was the founder and front man of mid-1970s protopunk art rock band Doctors of Madness.

Music

1975–1990s Richard Strange's first band Doctors of Madness, formed in 1975, releasing three albums. The band was supported by the Sex Pistols, the Jam and Joy Division. He disbanded the band in 1978, after Dave Vanian of the Damned briefly joined him on vocals. He subsequently recorded as a solo artist, releasing two albums The Live Rise of Richard Strange (Ze Records 1981) and The Phenomenal Rise of Richard Strange (Virgin Records 1981) before further releases with the Engine Room up to the early 1990s. The Guardian praised the release and called the band "The missing link between David Bowie and the Sex Pistols".

In 2018, he performed his fantasy "The Phenomenal Rise of Richard Strange" in its entirety at a number of venues across the UK, including the festival All Points East with Nick Cave and Patti Smith.

In 2019, Strange returned to the studio to record the first new Doctors of Madness album in 41 years. The songs were written by Strange over a short period, and were recorded at Doghouse Studios, Oxfordshire, again with producer John Leckie. The eight-track album, entitled Dark Times, was released in September 2019. Featured guests included Joe Elliott of Def Leppard as backing vocalist on five songs, Sarah Jane Morris of the Communards singing on four, and contributions from Terry Edwards, Tinderstick, Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, Madness, Steve Boltz Bolton, Paul Young, The Who and Atomic Rooster as well as the young protest singer Lily Bud.

In September 2019, he toured the UK with a band in a show entitled "Richard Strange performs the songs of Lou Reed", featuring over 20 songs by the former Velvet Underground composer and front man.

In 2021, 1978, an album of his songs co-written with T V Smith of the punk band The Adverts, was released to coincide with International Record Store Day. A single by the duo, "Don't Panic England", was released in December 2021, mixed by Martyn Ware of The Human League.

Solo discography

Albums The Live Rise of Richard Strange (1980), ZE Records The Phenomenal Rise of Richard Strange (1981), Virgin Going-Gone (1986), Interphon Germany - with the Engine Room The Rest is Silence (1990), Ausfahrt Berlin (a label of syncron-arts GmbH, studio.Wannsee) - with the Engine Room This is War (2005), Richard Strange Records - Ausfahrt Berlin (a label of syncron-arts GmbH, studio.Wannsee)

Singles and EPs "International Language" (1980), Cherry Red - UK Indie #48 "International Language" (1981), Virgin "The Phenomenal Rise of Richard Strange" (1981), Virgin "Next!" (1983), Albion "Wild Times" (1984), Arista - as the Engine Room "Your Kiss is a Weapon" (1985), Arista Damascus EP (1988), Nightshift

Curating Richard Strange founded the multidisciplinary Cabaret Futura club in Soho in 1980,

Throughout 2004-07 Strange worked with Marianne Faithfull on the Tom Waits/William Burroughs/Robert Wilson collaboration The Black Rider, singing and acting in this stage musical in theatres in London, San Francisco, Sydney and Los Angeles.

In 2025 Strange starred in the short film Prince of Tears, co-starring Mary Woodvine, and directed by Solomon Bowden.

Art and performance works His collaborations include work with Sam Taylor Wood for the banner XV Seconds (2000) that covered the facade of the London department store Selfridges for 6 months in 2000. More recently he has worked with the Anglo-Pakistani artist Haroon Mirza on several projects including A Sleek Dry Yell (London, Dundee, Walker Art Gallery, Manchester Art Gallery and Hamburg) and Regaining a Degree of Control a.k.a. The Last Tape. (2010), (Hayward Gallery, London, Chisenhale Gallery, London, New Moves, Glasgow, Vivid Gallery, Birmingham and Brownstone Foundation, Paris.) and "Falling Rave" shown at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall. He frequently works with the Live Art collective boyleANDshaw, performing with them at the Calvert Gallery, London in 2010, and at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in 2011. He showed his solo performance piece "Welcome to my World" at the closing celebrations of the long established Mayor Gallery, in London's Cork Street.

In March 2011 Strange was invited by the New Moves International Festival of Live Art to curate a weekend of events and to premiere a new performance work, I've a Feeling We're Not in Kansas Anymore, which he devised with the photographer and academic Kelly Dearsley. The work was shown in Glasgow in March 2011 alongside other artists including Liliane Lijn, Richard Wilson and Haroon Mirza.

In December 2018 he worked again with Haroon Mirza on a specially commissioned work, Unknown Remembered for the Spitalfields Festival.

Other As a writer and journalist, Strange has contributed to The Guardian, The Sunday Telegraph, The Independent, Tatler, The Art Newspaper, Art Monthly, The European, Time Out, GQ, The London Standard and Travel and Culture, among other publications.

Richard's memoir Strange: Punks and Drunks and Flicks and Kicks, was published by Andre Deutsch in 2005.

In June 2011 he presented This Is Not Magritte, a programme on the Belgian surrealist painter René Magritte, on BBC Radio 4. In July, Strange chaired a Tate Gallery discussion on watercolours at the Camp Bestival Festival. In November, he was invited to be Creator in Residence at the Hong Kong Design Institute.

Richard Strange also hosts a series of monthly live chat shows called A Mighty Big If at the House of St Barnabas, Soho, in which he interviews guests from the world of art, music, literature and film. Past guests have included Marc Almond, Mike Figgis, Gary Kemp, Peter Capaldi, Nile Rodgers, Michael Nyman, Gavin Turk, Simon Day, Cornelia Parker, Richard Wilson, Robert Wilson, Alison Jackson, Robert Elms, and James Rhodes.

Strange is a guest lecturer teaching "Creativity in Context" at Tileyard in London, and is an occasional lecturer at the London College of Fashion, Buckinghamshire New University, Hong Kong Design Institute and University of Southern California. He was recently named a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and in 2012 was Creator in Residence at the Hong Kong Design Institute.

During the COVID-19 lockdown in March–August 2020, Strange worked from his studio, creating an audio version of his memoir Strange: Punks and Drunks and Flicks and Kicks, which he made available for free in daily posts on his website, and he commenced a weekly online radio show, "Dark Times Radio", featuring music he has written, performed, produced or been inspired by.

His first play, When You Awake You Will Remember Nothing, written with the Portuguese artist Antonio Olaio, premiered in Lisbon, Portugal in October 2021, with further shows in Porto, Coimbra and London in January and February 2022. His second play, The Black Square also written devised and performed with Antonio Olaio premiered in Coimbra in October 2024, followed by shows in Lisbon (2024), London (2025) and Porto (2025). Critics described The Black Square, a dystopian story set in a world where it is illegal to produce, possess, distribute and replicate images, as "Thought-provoking, deep, dark yet also amusing.”, “... profound and clever and powerful" and “Absolutely fantastic, I can't express fully the witty, the irony, the punch in our world that these two artists come up with in their post-apocalyptic play Using text, film, song, live performance and live art, THE BLACK SQUARE asks the crucial 21st Century question: Who owns our memories?"