‘Being in Madness kept some of them out of jail’: how the baggy-trousered nutty boys made a guerrilla cinema classic

From a jail-inspired light sabre fight to the moment a sax-player flew, Take It or Leave It brilliantly captured the hit-makers’ grimy origins.

Will the film’s return see it finally honoured as a music movie landmark? It’s March 1981 and Madness are revisiting the haunts of their recent youth with a film crew in tow.

In the 18 months since releasing their debut single, The Prince, the group have become the UK’s most beloved hit-makers, their ascent abetted by inventive music videos that have left viewers of Top of the Pops and Tiswas believing a man could fly – while blowing a sax.

But this new project is something else.

Instead of squandering their newfound wealth on fast cars and country piles, the seven-piece have invested in a semi-fictional big-screen telling of their origin story that tempers their trademark “nuttiness” with a kitchen-sink realism suiting their working-class roots.

While Take It or Leave It sank into obscurity soon after release, a new 4K restoration has primed the film for rediscovery as a time-capsule of grimy 70s London, and perhaps cinema’s most honest depiction of the challenges involved in trying to get a band together.

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