With the Mr Benn theme tune bouncing along in the background, Neil Hannon strode onto the sparse stage dressed as a city gent, complete with bowler hat, pipe and briefcase, sat at the grand piano and launched into ‘Assume The Perpendicular’ from the new album.

Hannon’s acerbic take on the recession, the scathing ‘ The Complete Banker’, contained one of the many great lines of the afternoon, “I’m a conscience-free malignant cancer on society”. As with every song this was received with cheers from a crowd of devoted fans, who were clearly not here just to escape the rain. Continuing to accompany himself on piano, there was a nice bit of ‘isn’t-Brighton-great’ banter during which Neil told a great story about Nick Cave telling him to F*ck Off.

Switching briefly to acoustic guitar for ‘Absent Friends’ which received a massive cheer, he returned to the piano to implore us all to visit Bristol to see his new Swallows & Amazons musical from which he played an excerpt while assuming the role of a 10 year old girl. The erudite wordplay of this man is breathtaking and he continued apace with two more new songs, ‘The Lost Art Of Conversation’, in which we were encouraged to chat amongst ourselves as the song faded out, and the excellent ‘ At The Indie Disco’ complete with out-of-sync clapping and finger-snapping.

We were then asked to choose the next song and after playing the winner ‘The Summer House’, the beautifully poignant Brelesque ‘A Lady Of A Certain Age’ was stunning. A very bouncy ‘Jiggery Pokery’ was very Flanders & Swann (Ask your grandparents, kids) and a touching rendition of ‘Our Mutual Friend’ completed the set. For the encore we sang La Marseillaise for ‘Frog Princess’, confirming Neil Hannon’s position as the king of audience participation before leaving us with a rollicking ‘National Express’.

The Divine Comedy
Komedia
Sunday matinee, 14th November

Words by Steve Clements