Adam Ant in conversation with Dave McCullough, Sounds, April 4 1981
Alice or Adam?
Also billed as a Royal Command Performance
From Rip It Up:
"Adam ended 1981 with a spectacular, no-expense-spared tour, the Prince Charming Revue. The word “revue” signaled that he’d moved into the realm of pure showbiz.
"In interviews, Adam talked in vague terms about providing kids with hope, a positive alternative to “the rock rebellion rubbish”. He claimed he was perfectly happy offering escapist entertainment a la Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark. And he defended his squeaky-clean image: "I'm sick and tired of being told that because I don't drink or smoke or take drugs that I'm a goody-two shoes.… I don't like drugs and that is a threat to the rock'n'roll establishment...” The art school student who hung around McLaren & Westwood's SEX and Seditionaries stores, thrilled by the fetish clothing and images of the Queen with a safety pin through her nose, now proudly performed at the Royal Variety Show, an annual charity event featuring Britain’s top entertainers. "It would have been exactly the negative inward looking rock thing to have turned it down. If people think I'm clean and boring for shaking hands with the Queen then that's up to them... What would be outrageous? To spit at her? Drop me trousers? That's rock and roll rebellion and, like I say, I want nothing to do with that."
