By now you've probably read that Miles has asked all you LAMBAST readers to drop us a line about what you Thought of The 'Welcome To The Cheap Seats' video. Di Lambert from Avon, has already done just that. Here's what she thought of 'Welcome To The Cheap Seats' - The Motion Picture.

February 10th 1992. Hardly a significant date... or is it? Well, it's not the day Paddy Ashdown ad miffed his affair, it's not the day that 'delightful' BBC documentary 'Elizabeth R' was broadcast. No, Feb 10th saw the emergence of every Stuff fan's dream and a certain Melody Maker critic's worst nightmare ... the inevitable Wonder Stuff 'Rockumentary'. Already, Welcome To The Cheap Seats - The Motion Picture looks bound to follow the success of its accompanying Soundtrack EP, and rightly so because it's a truly wonderful (excuse the pun) film.

The tag "Rockumentary" isn't strictly fair. The whole concept of the 'Rock n Roll' lifestyle has never been a major part of The Stuffies' work and somehow, the very word `Rockumentary' tends to conjure up images of Simple Minds, U2 and other overblown Rock Gods; The Stuffies aren't of that sort of genre. Instead, Cheap Seats is, dare I say, more in the vein of one of those rather nice BBC2 documentaries. It's a jolly jaunt through the career of Miles an Co, beautifully filmed, gentle in pace, subtlely humorous and lovingly crafted (is this pretentious or what?!)

Cheap Seats is by no means a forum for The Stuffies to parade themselves with self-gratification and self-indulgence, again, this isn't their way. It shows them pretty much as they are and provides a valuable insight into this thing that is The Wonder Stuff.

Interspersed with superb live footage and those tremendous single promos (also accredited to the film's director, Simon Smith) the film possesses a finely-honed harmony between interview and music and there's an intelligence behind the whole structure of the film.

Balance is also evident by the way that Smith hasn't simply concentrated on The Stuff, but also on the "Without Whom" Department, i.e. Les, the ever brilliant Crap Crew, the fans... Vic & Bob.

To the casual observer, one would imagine, the strong family-like camaraderie between band and crew, and those gorgeous clips of Martin and Barney might well be a little to cosy for comfort. However, these parts serve to accentuate the overall 'share the love' vibe that makes up the very heart of the film. Similarly, it has been said that we don't learn enough about The Stuffies as people, but do we need to? We learn a tremendous amount through their music and live performances and a certain edge of mystery keeps an important, stimulated interest in the band and what they do.

In general Cheap Seats has the true essence of any great film, that contented warm glow that makes you rewind the video and immediately watch it all over again. And that montage of clips accompanying The Stuffies fine cover of 'That's Entertainment' followed by the inspired 'Sing the Absurd' to play out the credits is the cherry on the cake that has already been baked and iced in the course of the previous 76 minutes.

With Cheap Seats those lovely people at Far Out have produced another gem for us all to swoon over and all I can do is say thanks in this glaringly sycophantic piece of writing. I wonder if Everett True has his copy yet?!

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