In the fall of 1994, I had a brilliant idea. While enjoying a passionate affair with Pulp's "His 'N Hers" album for most of that season, I couldn't help but hear something more than the obvious kitschy brilliance. I heard a musical. Not just any musical, but a musical based on the songs of "His 'N Hers". I used to pop the tape into my walkman and dream about it. Vaguely speaking (and truthfully, my adaption never went beyond the "vague" stage) it was an English version of "West Side Story", featuring the riff raff of Sheffield's underbelly. The hero (I never did come up with names for any of the characters) was a boorish thug who, along with his gang of similarly minded friends, did his damnedest to cause trouble, and treat women like Kleenex ("Joyriders" is the gang's mission statement -- serving the same function as "When You're a Jet"). Then, he falls in love and sees how the other half lives. It tears him apart that he loves her and yet she's hung up on other men who treat her like garbage (in the same way that he has been doing all of his life -- cue "Have You Seen Her Lately?"). He becomes a sentimental, whimpering shell of his former arrogant self (bring on "Pink Glove"). Of course, this musical can't have a happy ending. For one thing, "Happy Endings" foretells a conclusion which is never due to pass (smell the irony), and besides, "West Side Story" didn't have a happy ending, did it? Whatever their names are, the people featured throughout "His 'N Hers" are endlessly fascinating. This album is an untapped source of high musical drama, while the lyric sheet is practically it's own libretto.

My ideas may be six years old, but "Mamma Mia" made it to the stage first. It bears mentioning that I LOVE Abba's music, and I finally saw "Mamma Mia" last night. On one hand, Abba songs are pop music of the first order: exquisite specimens of melody and harmony and insatiably catchy to boot. On the other hand, the lyrics are not-so-exquisitely crafted by people with a limited grasp of the English language. Combined with a sparsity of topics beyond love and lost love, this makes a collection of these songs in-adept at telling a story, which means that Abba songs have no place in a musical. Watching the pathetically thin plot unfold while Abba songs were grafted on like tin foil to shag carpet ranged from awkward to embarrassing. And it is certainly NOT all in good fun, if it were SUPPOSED to be all about the songs, then we should be seeing an ABBA covers band, not a musical in which some semblance of drama and suspense and plot resolution and character development are to be expected. It all amounts to little more than karaoke with an extravagant budget. What's more, this production knows it because it does it's damnedest to distract you from what's being sung on stage -- from the over-the-top dancing in the background to the brightly coloured 70's jumpsuits to the men dancing in wetsuits and flippers -- all of it serves to provide fleeting entertainment value at the expense of having to pay any more attention than one would while watching showgirls in Vegas casino.

I won't quibble anymore (OK, maybe just a bit -- you'd figure they could find decent male singers, but maybe I'm wrong) but the take home message is that "Mamma Mia" offers Broadway-themed renditions of classic Abba songs and absolutely nothing else. Of course, in writing this I've let another cat out of the bag. Any enterprising theatre production company that wants to design another musical based on classic pop songs might want to call Pulp c/o Island Records.