Madonna done in Jersey Boy style

Musical star takes on songs by Queen of Pop

Jersey Boys actor Michael Griffiths is performing a Madonna show in Auckland

From Big Girls Don't Cry to Like A Virgin, Jersey Boys star Michael Griffiths is swapping one legendary songbook for another in his one man cabaret show, In Vogue: Songs By Madonna.

Griffiths plays Bob Crewe, the man often touted as the fifth Four Season in Jersey Boys, the stage show that has taken over Auckland's Civic Theatre for the past two months. But on Monday, for one night only, he is taking on a new role as Madonna.

The show, which has played around Australia and in New York, features Griffiths playing the Queen of Pop, telling her story through the songs she is famous for.

This isn't Stars in their Eyes though.

"I said if we were going to do this I need to be Madonna, but I'm not going to wear a wig and I'm not going to drag up - I'd already done Priscilla [Queen of the Desert], I'd had enough drag," Griffiths says.

Instead, he describes his on-stage look as "very Noel Coward-esque" as he brings Madonna to life with only his voice and a piano - no bells or whistles, just the songs speaking for themselves.

The show features 35 of the Material Girl's finest tunes and Griffiths says, like The Four Seasons' songs from Jersey Boys, there is something about Madonna's back catalogue that is instantly recognisable.

"You may not realise that you do know almost every single song, the same as Jersey Boys, [where audiences] might know Sherry, then they come along and there is song after song and they think 'that's right, this is good and I know this'. And that's the same with my Madonna show.

"Madonna transcends so many pop boundaries and cultures - she's just everywhere and people bring that to my show, whether they like it or not, they bring their experience of these songs."

And the Australian actor says the show proves Madonna is more than just an iconic voice.

"She writes good songs, but no-one ever thinks they are that clever... People just think of her as being a singer, dancer, controversial icon - which she is all of these things - but she's also, under it all, a very considered and very clever songwriter.

"When they are stripped away from the production and the film clips and her, they just stand as songs. And they are clever and they are winners, almost every single one of them."

Of course, you can't do a show about Madge without mentioning the bumpy road she's travelled. Her hit Papa Don't Preach has been re-worked to talk about her failed marriage to Sean Penn, and Griffiths doesn't shy away from her often iffy career choices.

"We talk a little bit about her failed movie career, because you can't not. It's good for a gag."

"And when we wrote the show, we all thought her career was over. We were certainly writing the show with her being in the twilight of her career, and when [her latest album] MDNA was announced, I thought 'oh no, it's going to be this huge hit and it's going to put her back on top' and it kind of hasn't. And that's great for us."

In Vogue: Songs by Madonna

WHEN: Monday, June 11 

WHERE: Wintergarden at the Civic in Auckland.

Tickets from Buy Tickets.

- © Fairfax NZ News