Mission impossible? Bringing together Morrissey and Marr for a Smiths reunion

Of all the bands to organise a reunion party for, few could be more difficult than the Smiths.

Next month marks the 20th anniversary of the Manchester band's first single "Hand in Glove", which introduced the jangling guitars and maudlin lyrics that shaped the consciousness of a generation.

Since then, a long-running and acrimonious court battle over royalties has destroyed any remaining goodwill between Morrissey, the singer, and Johnny Marr, the guitarist, on one side and Andy Rourke, the bassist, and Mike Joyce, the drummer, on the other. Morrissey, who went solo in 1987, has moved 7,000 miles to Los Angeles. Marr has formed a new band, the Healers, and is anxious not to be typecast as the man behind the sound of the Smiths.

But in spite of all this, BBC6, the rock and pop digital radio station, is attempting to set up a reunion party in the band's honour at the Salford Lads Club where it all began. A contest is being organised to find the most obsessive Smiths fan and the station has asked for "photographic evidence of huge quiffs, fake hearing aids or bedrooms plastered with posters". The two finalists will be invited to attend the 20th "birthday party".

Exactly how much revelry can reasonably be associated with a band that wrote the anthems "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now", "Girlfriend in a Coma" and "Still Ill" is not clear. When Michael Winterbottom devised the Steve Coogan film 24 Hour Party People to allow a wider audience to "share the ecstasy" of "the madness and the mayhem that was Manchester" in the Eighties, the Smiths were conspicuous by their absence.

But if Morrissey and Co were not the centre of the Manchester party scene, their influence was still there.

In one moment in the film, Coogan, playing the Factory Records boss Tony Wilson, is shown bemoaning the fact that he never signed the Smiths. The real-life Wilson is already confirmed as a guest at the Salford reunion. Also there will be such Manchester luminaries as Peter "Hooky" Hook, from New Order, Clint Boon from Inspiral Carpets, and the pioneering Manchester punk band the Buzzcocks.

The organiser, the veteran radio presenter Liz Kershaw, who is basing a three-hour programme around the gathering, said: "I have had loads of people e-mailing me, saying they want to come along.

"I have contacted everybody that would have rubbed shoulders with them [the Smiths] at the time in Manchester and whose lives would have been touched by them through the music, who would have a tale to tell."

Mike Joyce is definitely going to be there. But the burning questions are whether Morrissey or Marr will turn up.

Kershaw said: "We are inviting [Morrissey] and I think he's quite fond of me because he sent me a message saying 'hello'. We are inviting Johnny Marr. It would be fantastic if one or other of those two was there."

She admits that Marr has been doing his best to distance himself from the Smiths.

"The Healers have just had an album out and have been touring," she said. " It's not Smiths stuff, it's a completely new venture for him. He wants to show he's not tied to the past."

THE BAND WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

MORRISSEY singer

Morrissey now lives in Los Angeles. His solo efforts, although keenly followed at first, never matched the critical or commercial success of the Smiths.

JOHNNY MARR guitar

Marr's solo work, including a collaboration with The The on Mindbomb and with Bernard Sumner on Electronic, has also failed to live up to the Smiths. His new band, Johnny Marr and the Healers, has had bad reviews.

ANDY ROURKE bass

Rourke remained on the fringes of the business. In 1999, he formed Aziz with Joyce and Stone Roses guitarist Aziz Ibrahim but the band never took off.

MIKE JOYCE drums

Joyce launched a court action over royalties in 1998.The judge ruled in his favour branding Morrissey "devious and unreliable''. He recently unearthed a previously unreleased Smiths track, "A Matter Of Opinion".