More songs about rumpy pumpy

IN between the photo shoot for Hello!, the round of pro am celebrity golf with indie chick Gloria appearance on Celebrity Squares, young Neil Hannon off The Divine Comedy took time out from his "hectic showbiz schedule" to come in and celebrate with us his most successful week ever as a recording artist. Over a glass or two of sparkling wine (expenses aren't what they used to be) he told me that his new long playing record, A Short Album About Love, has entered the British charts at number 13 and, more happily, has entered the Irish charts at number eight.

"It's mad, mad and hectic and wonderful," says Neil. "For all the palaver about the last album, Casanova, it never even got into the top 50 of the album charts, so this is my first time to chart with an album, and I'm rather chuffed with myself." If you're wondering about Neil's rather stilted use of the language please remember he's the son of a Protestant Bishop, although you'll never catch this column doing a cheap "Son of a Preacher Man" headline.

The burning question of the day, though, is whether the album is live or not. Clear it up please, Neil: "It's not really live. What happened was we got a 30 piece orchestra, known as The Brunel Ensemble, and we recorded the seven songs in Shepherd's Bush Empire but not in front of a live audience, if you know what I mean," he says.

A rather splendid and lush affair, A Short Album sees Neil continuing with the same motif (rumpy pumpy, basically) as last year's Casanova, although maybe being a bit more "classical" as opposed to "laddish" in his songwriting approach. As much Perry Como (oh yes) as Scott Walker, Neil says he wrote most of the songs for the album at the same time as Casanova but held them back for this album because they were "too smoochy and sentimental" to go on the former.

Funny thing, but when Casanova was first released, this time last year, it seemed destined to go the way of all his previous work to become a case of the "critically acclaimed, commercially ignored" syndrome. What went right? "I don't like using the word, but the marketing on Casanova was much better than that of the previous two albums. Also, we toured and toured and toured, which really does make a difference in terms of album sales. Another factor was that we released singles from Casanova, which we had never done with the other albums. Then there was the Chris Evans factor he picked up on the first single, Something For The Weekend, played ft to death, put me on his television show and it all seemed to go from there.

What do you say to purist bores like me who claim that your previous albums, Liberation and Promenade, remain the best stuff you have ever done? "Well it's funny because some people think that Casanova is my debut or certainly react to me as if it is, because they don't seem to realise that there are two other albums out there. I honestly think that Casanova is just as thought out and just as whole a concept as Liberation and Promenade. The really good thing is that the first two albums have sold steadily, if not spectacularly, through the years. As an indication of my past, I've included a song from Liberation, called Timewatching on this new album".

How are the French reacting to your new commercial success - is it a case of "I told you so"? "Well yeah, because with the earlier work I always used to sell much more in France than I did in Britain and Ireland combined. So while they're very pleased for me, since they like to see themselves as instigators of fashion, I think they may be a bit disappointed that everybody else suddenly wants to know."

Live dates? "I'm back in Ireland in March. I'll be doing The Olympia in Dublin on March 16th and The Limelight in Belfast on March 17th. It'll be really strange doing The Limelight because that's where, about eight years ago, The Divine Comedy did their first real proper gig." Anything else? "Yeah, could people keep sending female underwear through the post to me, I'm quite enjoying it."