Why Mark E Smith’s maligned Catholic play is being rebooted

In December 1986 Hey! Luciani: The Life and Codex of John Paul I ran for two weeks at Hammersmith’s Riverside Studios. To its author Mark E Smith it was "a cross between Shakespeare and The Prisoner", but critics dismissed it: "The thoroughness of Smith’s failure must be accounted his only achievement," and Melody Maker called for "an immediate and bloody end to Arts Council funding." This week, at Manchester’s Band on the Wall, comedy screenwriter Graham Duff will restage Hey!

Luciani as a rehearsed reading with full costume and music from local Fall tribute band The Look Back Bores, part of a 50th anniversary Fall celebration festival. Duff, a one-time collaborator with Smith, calls it "a poisoned chalice" and "a real oddity." Steve Hanley, who expected to play bass, remembers being costumed as the pope with "about seven different layers of cassocks." Smith reportedly wrote the script obsessively on a US tour, on beer mats and delivered it to Riverside in a shoe box.

United Kingdom, Manchester

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