Than listeining to watered down classical versions of Smiths songs without the lyrics... Anyone else agree? If Morrissey has agreed to this, he has no shame, none whatsoever.

..as they wrote the songs and those two are legally the Smiths anyway.

Marr was taking the piss a bit at the idea that it was going to be the songs expressed through the "medium of dance".

He said he'd prefer it if it was more like the Mamma Mia show but he'd go to the opening night out of curiosity.

can we just use the acronym

HDNMMIAC

in the title - save us from reading on

But I think the musical should be about the life of Morrissey, and an exploration of the way the songs reflect this, rather than just being "about the songs, not the band."

The music stands up in its own right, but there's much more to Morrissey's appeal than just the music.

Oh and let's hope they don't get some tanned American bequiffed beauty to play the lead role.

The *new* Healers album? Does that mean there's another one coming?

Oh dear...

For once, I'm going to say we should see what they do with it first before slating it, perverse though a Smiths musical may sound. If anyone (I think possibly only UK) knows a show called All You Need Is Love from about 3/4 years ago, that's the kind of impression I'm getting of it. It was a cast singing Beatles songs (duh) with full orchestra with no storyline, just tableaus and artist set and things. I am aware of how unmarketable that sounds, trust me, but I thought the show was fantastic, and really complimentary/complementary to the music. I'm hoping it will be something similar. If it turns out it isn't, please remind me of these sentiments and I will gladly eat my gladioli.

A few years back, I went to see Our House in the West End. It was a production based on the music of Madness. Rather interestingly and fairly well done I thought, an entire play about the lives of a bunch of youths set in London was constructed using the back catalogue of Madness, interspersed with some dialogue to help the play along.

The Smiths back catalogue is ripe for the picking if the same principles were applied.

Set it Manchester and London, and you could write a play based around some bloke/lass, who grows up in Manc, is horrified by the shared guilt of the Moors murderers, decides to go to London, falls in love, but can't get laid, doesn't want to get laid, who can't go back to the old house, falls out with everyone, and wishes them an unhappy birthday. Encore