Angela Lewis on pop

All is not quite as it seems with Neil Hannon (below right), the vocalist and songwriter from The Divine Comedy. The band's album, appropriately titled Casanova, casts the Northern Irish lad Neil as a debonair lady killer with a champagne lifestyle, and the dashing style and wit to snare any female who catches his twinkling eye. And the songs in which he casts himself as a hero are not mere pop music - they're laden with all the string-quartet pomp and drama of a West End musical.

It is a magnificent record. But who would guess that Neil Hannon is in actual fact a shy, 5ft 5ins bloke, who penned his grand tales of sexual exploits while boxed up in a Brixton bedsit, as a string of girlfriends came and dumped him at depressingly regular intervals? We know the exact truth because Hannon can't resist admitting to the drab reality occasionally.

Maybe he knows that the fact that he is a whopping fibber doesn't detract from his cheeky lyrics. "I fall in love with someone new practically everyday, but that's okay, that's the price I pay for being a man/I refuse to take it all so seriously," he warbles during "In and Out of Paris And London". I believe you. Like My Life Story and Baby Bird, The Divine Comedy are rock's current lurid storytellers, but Neil gets extra brownie points. Because, lest we forget, he wrote the theme tune to Father Ted.

The champagne will flow his way for real one day, doubtless.

The Divine Comedy, Brighton Pavilion (01273 709709) tonight; York Hall, Bethnal Green, London (0181-980 2243) tomorrow