The Smiths - South Bank Show

Like many great visionaries, I managed to completely ignore The Smiths when they were recording and only managed to discover them years after they'd split up.

The other day, missing English content that doesn't come from the insipid BBC World, I was on UK Nova and stumbled across a link to the South Bank Show on The Smiths. It was actually broadcast a couple of weeks after they'd announced their split. I sort of remember this documentary from the time, especially Morrissey being driven around Manchester in the back of a white cadillac.

What's striking about this doc is how pompous they all are. Now don't get me wrong, I actually sorta agree with people who say The Smiths are peers to The Beatles, but bloody hell why do you have to be waving a cigarette in the air with your shirt half undone whilst you're saying it? You wouldn't get away with that sort of pompousness now, but I suppose it shows how important they believed that kind of music was at the time.

Still, it's an interesting programme and UK Nova is a fantastic site, so get it.