New theatre: Still Ill explores The Troubles and The Smiths music at Oldham Coliseum

It’s notoriously difficult to get the rights to perform any Smiths song in a dramatic piece of work. So when the play Still Ill, whose storyline and characters are heavily inspired by Smiths’ track There Is A Light That Never Goes Out, got the go-ahead from Morrissey and Marr to use the song, it indicated that this was something special. Having already won the International Playwriting Award and given a Special Commendation at the Verity Bargate Award, this performance is the product of award-winning Manchester playwright Billy Cowan and Kenneth Branagh’s younger sister, Joyce. It’s a dramatic account of the peace process in Northern Ireland with music by the Smiths – and your chance to experience the tragic love story between ‘the jumped up pantry boy’ and ‘the boy with the thorn in his side’.

Tue 25 Nov, Oldham Coliseum Theatre, Fairbottom Street, Oldham, OL1 3SW, Tel: 0161 624 2829, 7pm, £5, www.coliseum.org.uk