A DISTINCT lack of foliage but otherwise as close to the real thing as you can get delighted fans who crowded to enjoy the music of The Smiths in Worcester.

For the many who didn’t get to catch the real thing during the brief period they were performing in the 1980s, tribute band The Smiths Ltd go a long way to reproduce the sound, the look and the humorous melancholy of the iconic band.

Starting promptly — and playing through without an interval — the band jumped straight in with Panic in the packed Huntingdon Hall.

Clearly enjoying the religious setting — the Crowngate venue being a Grade II-listed former Methodist chapel — frontman Johnny Turner encouraged the ‘congregation’ to stand. By Shoplifters of the World Unite a number of people were doing their best to dance around the restrictive chairs.

Turner took up the role of the controversial frontman Morrissey in 2009.

He responded to an ad in his local paper, the Manchester Evening News, from a tribute band desperately seeking their missing Morrissey and the rest is history.

From the quiff to the stare, the floral shirt, the trademark beads and the dramatic writhing on the floor, Turner has this down to a fine art.

Alex Gaskell is an uncanny Johnny Marr on guitar while Andy Crook on bass and Keith Partington on drums bring that unmistakeable Smiths sound to life.

Now for the dancing.

Anyone who has ever watched footage of The Smiths will have seen Morrissey’s wild flailing shapes on stage and there was plenty of that from the band and members of an enthusiastic crowd who were all on their feet by the end.

One fan’s fittingly loud and repeated calls to hear Bigmouth Strikes Again weren’t rewarded until the very end with the set weaving favourites and lesser-known songs from the Manchester band’s back catalogue throughout the evening.

Hand in Glove, Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now, Please, Please, Please… and Frankly, Mr Shankly stood out for me.

Ask seemed to inject the crowd with more energy nine songs in and of course There Is A Light That Never Goes Out and This Charming Man were huge hits.

After returning for a much-called-for encore, the band said goodnight and thanked everyone for coming to watch ‘four old men try and be something they’re not’.

While technically true, they come extremely close.

Sofia Jones reviewed the show on Saturday, May 4.