27/07/2018, Loose Canon | Etat-critique.com
Disque d’été! Autre fan de la pop qui a l’envie de voyager: Neil Hannon. Amoureux de la France, il rêve de fonder un empire de la musique sur notre territoire! En pèriode de Brexit, on espère franchement qu’il va s’intaller chez nous et nous révéler nos forces!
24/07/2018, All events for Swallows and Amazons at Brighton Open Air Theatre | Child friendly Brighton and Hove
24/07/2018, Silk and Amphetamine (Casanova Companions) | The Flan in the High Castle
To an attentive Divine Comedy fan in the mid-1990s, it would appear that Neil Hannon was releasing EPs under two banners: the Companion and the Indulgence. A record is a Companion when it's associated with a particular album, and an Indulgence when it's not. A Promenade Companion is clearly a satellite in the orbit of the…
24/07/2018, And Never the Bride (Casanova) | The Flan in the High Castle
In 1996, The Divine Comedy entered their imperial phase with Casanova, the album that finally broke Neil Hannon into the mainstream. Together with its immediate precursors, Liberation and Promenade, it forms the final part of a three-album plateau of artistic excellence. (Should we call it the early-to-mid-nineties trilogy? Too vague. The fancy-monepic-title trilogy?) However, when…
24/07/2018, Beyond the Boundaries of Sense (Indulgence No. 2) | The Flan in the High Castle
In July 1994, an odd promise was fulfilled as The Divine Comedy released Indulgence No. 2, the sequel – at least in a certain sense – to 1993's Indulgence No. 1. That shared name is really the only thing connecting the two EPs, whose contents could hardly be more different: where No. 1 consisted of two…
24/07/2018, Fire to the Sea (A Promenade Companion / Compagnon de Promenade) | The Flan in the High Castle
The album Promenade stands alone, a complete and self-contained work. That said, also it has a couple of satellites in its orbit: two EPs whose names mark them as supplemental, a pair of records slaved to the album and implicitly elaborating on its meaning. One of these is called A Promenade Companion. The other is…
24/07/2018, Asleep Behind the Wheel (Promenade) | The Flan in the High Castle
If Liberation was Neil Hannon's artistic breakthrough, it's 1994's Promenade that showed he knew it – and that, having scrambled and experimented until arriving at what was basically going to be his signature sound, it was time to dig in and explore this new territory. The resulting album essentially refines Liberation, keeping its tone while amplifying its…
24/07/2018, A Strange God in My Head (Indulgence No. 1) | The Flan in the High Castle
Here's an odd one. In October 1993, two months after the release of the Liberation album, Setanta quietly put out another Divine Comedy record. Intriguingly titled Indulgence No. 1, it has three tracks, no front cover, and no lyrics written by Neil Hannon. What even is this thing? OK, let's rewind. It seems that Indulgence…
24/07/2018, Each Fantasy Chosen Begins (Liberation) | The Flan in the High Castle
After several years – and several records – spent cycling from the influence of one overwhelming monolith to the next, The Divine Comedy, a band which has essentially been a shifting progression of tribute acts with glimmers of promise, suddenly snaps into lucid perfection. Territory is delineated. Muses are secured. Neil Hannon has arrived. What we've…
24/07/2018, We Know Not What We Do (Europop) | The Flan in the High Castle
At the very brink of consummation, The Divine Comedy's inevitable evolution into what it was always meant to be experienced a slight hiccup: Neil Hannon decided to stop singing. That's right: the year was 1991, and Hannon, newly enamoured of Blur guitarist Graham Coxon, had concluded that he must step down as vocalist to focus his…
24/07/2018, Look at Life Through the Half-Closed Eye (Timewatch) | The Flan in the High Castle
We're still floundering; still not quite there. Timewatch, a three-track EP, was released in 1991 – one year on from the false start of Fanfare for the Comic Muse, but still two years short of the inspired reinvention of Liberation. Musically and lyrically, Timewatch is more or less indistinguishable from the preceding album's jangly, REM-influenced shoegaze – you could substitute pretty…
24/07/2018, I’ll Take You Upstream, Up to My Origin (Fanfare for the Comic Muse) | The Flan in the High Castle
In 1989, Neil Hannon cast aside the name of October and declared his band... The Cherry Orchard. The band, already the revolving door of members we love so well, recorded five demos in Active Studio before it occurred to anyone that the title of this particular Anton Chekhov play did not make for a very catchy name.…
24/07/2018, It Doesn’t Arrive Overnight (October 1st) | The Flan in the High Castle
Before The Divine Comedy, there was October. Neil Hannon's original band, formed with three friends in Enniskillen, only ever produced two releases: the four-track EP October 1st in 1987, and the album Exposition in 1989. Since Exposition remains elusive, October 1st is our sole insight into this formative era. Hannon generally refers to Fanfare for…
24/07/2018, Not to Fools Like Me (The Divine Comedy) | The Flan in the High Castle
There are a great many reasons to like the music of Neil Hannon, also known as The Divine Comedy: the compelling baroque-rock sound, the strange and ineffable Irishness, the cultural magnetism of the esoteric and overlooked. Perhaps the most unique draw is that Hannon's connection to Father Ted: his music suffuses the world of the sitcom, which…
21/07/2018, Review: Creation Theatre's Swallows and Amazons in Oxford University Parks - ''Sweet, charming and rollicking good fun' | The Oxford Times
Theatre-lovers in Oxford are blessed with a wealth of outdoor shows at this time of year. None, however, will be as sweet, charming and such…
17/07/2018, Entrevista a Coque Malla:
El cantante y guitarrista, exlíder de Los Ronaldos, pasea su buen momento con dos conciertos en la sala Barts tras lanzar el disco en directo 'Irrepetible'
02/07/2018, It's a Brave New World for Creation Theatre at Oxford's Westgate | The Oxford Times
For the past 22 years, Creation has staged an open-air Shakespeare production every summer. Until now.
02/07/2018, Graham Linehan Reveals Cancer Diagnosis To Fans - Brainstain News
Comedian Graham Linehan, the man behind famous shows like Father Ted and The IT Crowd revealed that he had testicular cancer.