Divine inspirations

THE DIVINE COMEDY ROYAL CONCERT HALL

- By SEAN HEWITT

NEIL Hannon and The Divine Comedy pulled out all the stops for their first Nottingham visit in three years.

A two-hour show, including 26 songs which ran the gamut from mournful to hilarious with gloriously emotional in between, and with a riotous end run, it was certainly value for money.

But it all started out quietly. New album Rainy Sunday Afternoon is drenched in thoughts of ageing, mortality and the death of Hannon's father in 2022.

And that's the territory the concert initially explored, starting with the album's first two songs: Achilles, inspired by Patrick Shaw-Stewart's poem Achilles In The Trench and all about death. And The Last Time I Saw The Old Man, with a lyric movingly describing Hannon’s father’s final days with Alzheimer's.