Flouncy, whiney, big-girl’s-blouse pop star Morrissey has shocked everyone in the world by buying up the TV rights to 1950s Eagle Comic hero Dan Dare - and is set to star as Dare himself, in the forthcoming screen adaptation to be co-produced by Carnival Films as a twelve-hour mini-series for the BBC.
The show, “Dan Dare: Pilot Of The Future”, has been written completely by Morrissey - much to general dismay from an entire generation of Britons - and will be made as a semi-musical, special-effects extravaganza. Perhaps the biggest shock for longtime fans of Dan Dare are the alterations Morrissey will make to their beloved hero on the screen. Not content with having Dare as a waiflike, miserablist crooner in space, the determined star has stated that his Dan Dare will be a celibate, pacifist, sexually ambiguous and thoroughly vegetarian, militant character. “I believe utterly, that Dan never touched a joint in his life,” opined the reclusive wunderkind, aggressively. “And furthermore, I mean that in all senses of the word!”
The plans have outraged purists everywhere, but especially in Britain, where Dan is seen as the archetypal, salt-of-the-earth, quintissential English hero. “I’m outraged!” screeched back-to-basics Sci-Fi boffin Willy Boffola of the Keep Britain And Its S.F. Icons Quaint campaign. “How dare he do this to our Dare! We’re sick and tired of everything being modernised willy-nilly, with these new-fangled silly pop stars sticking their noses in where they’re not wanted. Leave our twee, outdated comic book space heroes alone!”
Other projected castings for the series are Robbie Coltrane as Digby, Sir Alec Guinness as Sir Hubert, with Shooting Stars’ George Dawes in a cameo role as arch-villain The Mekon. Brian Harvey, the ex-lead-singer of East 17, is getting a freckle transplant and having his hair dyed bright puce to play Flamer, and Kylie Minogue is pencilled in as Peabody - much to the chagrin of gothpop star / mogul Nick Cave, who was hoping to use Ms. Minogue in a musical production of King of the Rocket Men. “I’m gutted,” drawled the black-haired, pixie-nosed ghoul last night. “Moz must die for this... Slowly!” It is also rumoured that sex kitten superstar goddess Barbara Cartland is under consideration to play Digby’s Great Aunt Augusta. Our spies at Portsmouth drydocks recently spotted her face being given its ninety-fourth annual extensive re-fit at a cost of over £14 millions, which would seem to bear the rumours out.
Having heard that the special effects in the hit S.F. show Babylon 5 are produced using a toaster, Moz has contacted Morphy Richards, much to the confusion of their sales department.
Undeterred, Morrissey has bought several new notebooks in which to write the scripts and a host of lyrics for new songs to be used in the production. “I feel I am on a mission; a crusade to educate the ignorant British public on how Dan Dare should have been done, right from the very beginning,” explained the bequiffed Mancunian yesterday. “I’ve already written an album’s worth of material - no songs yet, mind you; just the titles: Treens Are Just... Treens, Dagenham Digby and You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet, Flamer are just a few of these...”
Possibly most pleased are Moz’s fans, who yesterday roared their approval, Nuremburg-like, from their vast shanty village encampment at the bottom of the star’s driveway. “We like whatever he does; we don’t care about anything else. He’s our Moz, and we’ll follow him FOREVER!!!” wittered 16-year old Andrea Tentive - in tears, predictably.