HIS bandmate Marti Pellow has already made the move into musical theatre, but now Wet Wet Wet bassist Graeme Clark is also set to star in the West End.

He will appear in a show called Bullets and Daffodils, about the life of first world war poet Wilfred Owen.

Graeme will perform as a Scottish soldier singing Danny Boy, and he says he's doing it for his grandad.

Graeme, 46, said: "My grandfather signed up in the army when he was 16, in 1916, as a musician. So he would've seen a bit of the war Wilfred's written about.

"It makes perfect sense for me to emulate my grandfather as it was from him I got my musical heritage. I only hope I can do the play and my Grandpa justice."

The show will only be in the West End for one night, at the Jermyn Street Theatre in Piccadilly Circus on July 29, though writer Dean Johnson is in talks to bring it to Glasgow.

Dean, 50, who set up a museum about Owen in Birkenhead, near Liverpool, got to know the Wets after they were introduced by Chris Difford from the band Squeeze at a song-writing seminar.

Dean, said: "Graeme and I have been friends for over a decade, and I co-wrote one of the songs on his solo album.

"I said 'how do you fancy playing a Scottish soldier in the West End, and he said 'I'd love to.' This is going to be his debut then there's going to be a Glasgow date.

"I'm talking to theatres now – and maybe we can get Marti along."

The show also features contributions from Pink Floyd legend David Gilmour and the voice of actor Christopher Timothy.

Owen, who lived in Birkenhead and joined up in 1915 when he was in his early 20s, was one of the best known poets of the first word war.

It was while he was a patient at Craiglockhart War Hospital in Edinburgh that he met fellow poet Siegfried Sassoon, who is said to have influenced his work.

Owen's most famous poems include Dulce et Decorum Est and Anthem for Doomed Youth. He was killed just a week before the war ended.

sarah.swain@eveningtimes.co.uk