John Aspill’s Madonna and I is a bold, glitter-dusted monologue that manages to be both uproariously funny and unexpectedly tender.

Framed by the beats and ballads of Madonna herself, this autobiographical solo piece takes the audience on a no-holds-barred ride dodging prejudice, surviving loss, and clinging to pop idols like life rafts.

From the Dublin tenements to a randy youth, via circus shenanigans and heroic drag queen rescues, Madonna and I is one man’s fascinating, funny, and intimate carousel of memory: vivid, theatrical, and often devastatingly real.

“Frivolous but serious too… self-deprecatingly funny… a wonderful, tender moment at the end of his circus adventures.”
— Liam Murphy, The Munster Express

Part theatre, part confessional, and laced with Madonna tracks like Hanky Panky and Like a Virgin, the performance pulses with both camp and catharsis. Aspill’s tenor voice and comic timing are a joy, but it’s the raw honesty — around family, sexuality, and survival — that lingers.

The show builds to a crescendo of queer joy and righteous rage — and just when you think he’s won the battle of self-acceptance, he throws in a darkly comic twist: “And then — bloody World War Three happens!”.

This is solo theatre at its best: personal, political, and packed with heart.

Written and performed by John Aspill
A Wexford Studio Production