Guest Blog: Simon Meader On Beastie Boys Musical LICENSED TO ILL

I first got into the Beastie Boys when I was about 13. A friend at school used to go around occasionally saying "Johnny Royale, he's the king of the homeless, he goes to sleep by falling down on his face". I asked him about it and he introduced me to the band via their second album Paul's Boutique.

I discovered that I actually already knew a lot of Beasties songs without even meaning too! Songs like "Fight For Your Right (To Party)", "Body Movin" and "Intergalactic" were already familiar, so my decision to delve more deeply into their back catalogue was one I've never regretted.

The Beastie Boys were not the only hip hop band I grew up with, but the energy and style of their music has had me revisiting them for years. So when my new friend, colleague, and fellow hip hop enthusiast Adam El Hagar told me that he'd "never really heard much Beastie Boys", I was very quick to recommend some of my favourite albums.

Adam and I met at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival earlier that year as actors flyering for our respective shows, so we saw each other almost every day. Then, after a successful Fringe for both our companies, we ended up working a week-long flyering gig together in central London.

I don't know if you've ever handed out flyers for more than a day, but if you have then you know that at a certain point you need to change things up to keep the boredom at bay. So to make things interesting we started to improvise raps about the show we were selling. We got some funny looks but we were having fun! We spoke about hip hop for the rest of the shift and I recommended Adam go home and listen to the Beastie Boys. He came back to work the next day having devoured their entire 30-year discography, so I don't think it's any surprise that we then started talking about making a show.

The energy, humour and skill behind every Beasties track makes their music perfect for live theatre, but it was the story of the band that confirmed this project in our minds. We researched their life and found that they had so many fun and incredible things happen to them. They went from being party-loving teenage superstars to international humanitarians, all the while creating ground-breaking hip hop. Their first album, Licensed To Ill, was the first number one hip hop album ever and is celebrated for bringing a whole new audience to hip hop.

This show was our chance to teach theatre audiences about all the amazing things they achieved. Not everyone who comes to the show is a Beasties fan, but they all leave with a new appreciation for them. The Tweets we've received saying things like "I'm listening to 'Ch-Check It Out' in my kitchen" or "I'm playing 'Hey Ladies' in the office" make me feel great - it means we've succeeded in getting others to love this group like we do.

Working with everyone on this show has honestly been a dream come true. Camden People's Theatre helped to get the idea off the ground by producing the first run, and now we're at the Southwark Playhouse. I can't wait for it all to start and to hear what new audiences think of the changes we've made to the show. I'd like to thank everyone who's supported us so far and I hope we can continue mixing hip hop and theatre together in a fast-paced comedic blur for a long time.

Licensed to Ill at Southwark Playhouse 30 November-24 December

Photo credit: Tom Ayerst