When Morrissey collapsed onstage during a gig in Swindon last weekend, his public momentarily dealt with the possible death of England’s poet laureate of eternal teenagers. And perhaps there was something highly appropriate about the fact that he was helped off the stage midway through a version of This Charming Man.

The song was the Smiths’ second single, and many will recall the band’s iconic performance of it on Top of the Pops. Morrissey stood, shirt open, displaying a bounty of vintage necklaces in the pink studio lights singing lines such as “Will nature make a man of me yet?” Swinging his signature gladioli as he went, he was filled with a dandyish joie de vivre.

Here at the Albert Hall he resumed the song that he failed to finish in Swindon (owing to “breathing difficulties”), but in doing so he showed the lifetime that had passed since those early halcyon days. The guitarist Boz Boorer’s booming, heavy-handed electric guitar had replaced Johnny Marr’s breezy, lightly strummed acoustic. It was the sort of mindless riffing that you would get in a Camden dive bar of a Friday night.

Times Archive, 1984: The Smiths live at the Lyceum

Morrissey is an extraordinary performer on his day - dishevelled, articulate and wryly sardonic

But the treatment of the song wasn’t the only thing that was bloated. Morrissey was dressed like a headmaster at the weekend: suit jacket, jeans and loafers. More alarmingly, he spent the evening looking unhealthy and uncomfortable.

“Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy night,” he told the crowd. He was right, but not for the right reasons.

The sea-change was confirmed by a retooling of another Smiths classic, the ode to loneliness How Soon is Now. Stark lyrical changes to the song included the line: “There’s a club if you’d like to go, you could meet somebody who can actually stand you/ So you go and you stand on your own and leave on your own. What a big surprise.”

At the song’s close he re-enacted the Swindon incident, curving up into the foetal position under the spotlight as a gong crashed behind him. “Thank you Swindon,” he said when he finally stood up. It was more eerie pantomime than postmodern brilliance. Apparently the permanently adolescent victim had finally become the misanthropic old cynic, and it wasn’t pretty.

The moments where the songs transcended their special circumstances were rare. A chestbeater such as English Blood Irish Heart was rousing, while the indefatigable I’m Throwing My Arms Around Paris was saved by a lovely chorus.

The rest of his set was filled with too many plodding, obscure solo songs that swiftly altered the mood from Lazarus-style resurrection to elongated wake. You were left pondering the brilliance of Morrissey’s earlier career.

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