MAMMA Mia! News that Abba have not only recorded new music but are also planning to tour - albeit as holograms - is so huge, I’m still trying to process it.

I have loved Abba for as long as I can remember. I was a young child when they shot to fame, via Eurovision, and I was obsessed with my mum’s Greatest Hits album, (the one with them all sitting on a park bench, Agnetha looking forlorn but wearing fabulous boots). I played it endlessly, miming to tracks like Ring, Ring and SOS and choreographing dance routines with my sister (who was always Anni-Frid because I had to be “the blonde one”).

On my bedroom wall was a big pink rosette with the faces of each Abba member. it was a thing of beauty.

I continued to love the Super Swedes when they went out of fashion in the Eighties, and over the years I’ve seen countless Abba tribute acts (some okay, some terrible). Best of the lot is Bjorn Again - delightfully tongue-in-cheek but skilfully pulling off those tricky harmonies - who I’ve seen about 12 times, assuming it was the closest I’d get to the real thing.

But now there’s talk of an “Abbatar tour” in 2019 or 2020. Each of the four band members will appear on stage in virtual form, with digital technology capturing younger versions of themselves in their 1970s heyday. So it’s not actually Abba live, but we’ll see them in their glory, in a live concert setting. Are you keeping up?

Prior to the tour, there’s a planned TV special, featuring new music from Abba. Last week they announced they’ve been recording together, for the first time in 35 years, and the result is two new songs. A statement on the band’s Instagram account said it had been a “joyful experience”.

New Abba songs? An Abba tour? It’s the news we never thought we’d hear and it has delighted Abba fans. But it’s not really offering us much. While I’m sure it will be a spectacular show, I can’t help thinking the hologram thing is a bit soulless.

There’s no chance of seeing Abba - the living, breathing, flesh and blood version - live because, as Bjorn Ulvaeus has said, it would be “too enormous”. They have reportedly been offered £1 billion to do a reunion tour but the simple truth, says Bjorn, is they don’t want to. They don’t need the money, nor do they crave the adoration. Agnetha and Anni-Frid appear to live quietly, occasionally releasing solo material, while Benny and Bjorn have their own music projects.

I’d rather remember them as they were, rocking it in their kimono and platform boots combos. We still have Abba’s lovely videos; their decade together captured on Lasse Hallström’s camera, from cheery pop to wistful melancholy, when loss, heartache and the fall-out of divorce finally did for them. There are occasional Abba exhibitions, like Super Troupers at London’s South Bank, which I recently visited. And for the diehards, there’s Abba: The Museum in Stockholm.

A virtual reality tour is pointless, and a little hollow. And it might set off a weird trend. Who’s next - the Beatles, Elvis, Michael Jackson? Maybe acts will decide that exhausting arena tours aren’t worth the effort, when they can send in a slick hologram to do it all instead. Abba once sang: “I’m a marionette, pull the string, everybody’s pet, just as long as I sing.” They left a wonderful legacy, but there’s little dignity in bringing them back as ‘virtual puppets’.