Astley writing Hollywood musical

Rick Astley has announced that he is writing a script based around his songs.

The singer has teamed up with a friend to create a big screen musical.

"My wife's now a movie producer so I read a lot of scripts and I’m really passionate about films," he told The Times.

"One day I thought, 'Well, why don't I write one?' And it turned into a musical - but not for the stage. It's dominated by the songs I've written - they tell the stories - so I hooked up with a guy in California and we wrote the script together. We're at the point of speaking to a few different agents and getting people to read."

"I'm not fooling myself - nothing may come of it and I totally understand that, but as a process I have loved it. When you're writing frothy pop songs the lyrics can be a bit 'whatever', they are hooky and you just sing them because they work. But writing these songs… Do they call that a libretto?"

Astley added that he did not take offence to being the subject of "Rickrolling", the recent phenomenon that sees internet users misdirected to the star's 'Never Going To Give You Up' video.

"It's not about me, is it? It probably started with some kid in Smallsville Arizona who wanted a naff '80s video to trick his friend with, and he chose mine," he joked.