Neil hannon

Wednesday

Alexander Larman

‘Modern pop makes me want to kill myself’: Neil Hannon interviewed

Search for a successor to Tom Lehrer, and you’ll be hard pressed to find any decent candidates. One of the  few, however, who can match the wit and sophistication of the late musical satirist is the Northern Irish musician Neil Hannon. The 54-year-old is the sole permanent member of his band the Divine Comedy, and his elegant records mix Lehrer-esque wordplay with swooning orchestral pop that is in equal measure Dusty Springfield, Scott Walker and Michael Nyman. But matters have darkened somewhat on his newest LP, Rainy Sunday Afternoon. Here, we are far from the cheeriness that many will remember on his 1990s records Casanova and Fin de ​Siècle. The

Thursday

Michael Hann

There’s a magic to hearing music in such small audiences: Divine Comedy reviewed

Three shows in a week! Why, it was just like the first week of March. There was, however, little of that last-days-of-Weimar giddiness about these. How could there be, when there were 300-odd people dotted around Barbican Hall’s 2,000 seats, and 50 or so of us at Oslo — normally a packed, standing-only club — sat on stools, unable even to waggle a hip? One felt sad for Working Men’s Club, a young quartet from Yorkshire whose first album — released earlier this month — had critics cheering. They should have been swanning around the country, heading off to Europe, maybe popping across the Atlantic, to play in New York