Fascinated with period fashions and storytelling, it should have been little surprise that The Divine Comedy lead singer Neil Hannon chose Swallows and Amazons as the basis for his first musical. Chris Price found out more.

Neil Hannon is one of many pop stars who have been drawn to the West End, but when the Irish singer was asked by the National Theatre to pen the music and lyrics for a new musical he found himself short on ideas. That was until he read Swallows and Amazons to his daughter.

“I didn’t want to start off with anything too heavy or too adult,” said the man behind The Divine Comedy’s nine Top 40 singles, including the huge hit National Express.

“I only bought Swallows and Amazons to read to my daughter and half-way through the book I thought it might fit the bill. A lot of my favourite musicals are family musicals and I kind of thought that was an easy way in.”

It was about 2007 when Neil started talking about the musical and he wrote it through 2008 and 2009. It was shown in Bristol for the first time in 2010 and quickly graduated to a West End run over Christmas before going on its national tour.

“You never expect anything and yet you never do anything thinking it is going to be unsuccessful,” said the 41-year-old, a former winner of Celebrity Mastermind.

“You just get on with it and hope for the best and if you do your best it usually turns out all right.”

Even if you do not know Neil’s work with The Divine Comedy, you probably know Neil’s music. The theme tunes of TV comedies Father Ted and The IT Crowd were written by him and he also penned Father Ted’s wonderful spoof Eurovision entry My Lovely Horse.

“I’m but a cog in the wheel of this show,” he said. “Admittedly it was my idea to do Swallows but the director Tom Morris approached me on behalf of the National Theatre to do something and it took quite a while to think of what to do.

“It had been variously talked about through the years because there has always been a story behind the things I have written. When I came to do it, it was very different to what I’m used to.

“I’m not telling a story in song but it’s a character explaining their feelings or a conversation and that is beyond my experience. But I found it great fun.”

Based on the novel by Arthur Ransome, Swallows and Amazons tells the story of the outdoor adventures of two families of children. Fans of The Divine Comedy’s work will point to similarities between the band’s baroque pop and Swallows’ fascination with childhood imagination and nostalgia for bygone youth.

Neil said: “There’s no real surprise in the subject matter that I chose. I love all that. I have always written a lot about water or being close to it. I don’t know why. I have never been a big fan but perhaps it is easy to write about – that fluidity. I do like my period stuff. It is not so much I wanted to be born in a different age, people just wore better clothes back then.”

`Wilderness years' in the attic

Asked to look back on his career, it is easy to see why Neil chose Swallows and Amazons for his debut musical. Asked to pick any moment he would like to go back to in his life, he bypasses the chart success of The Divine Comedy and heads straight back to his youth, something celebrated in the show.

He said: “It would be very scary but I would quite like to revisit my wilderness years just after I left school when I was holed up in my parents’ attic figuring out how to write songs.

“I remember it being an exciting period even though I had no friends as everyone I knew had gone to university.

I'm just ticking all the boxes

First championed by Chris Evans when he hosted the Radio 1 breakfast show, Neil has been the only permanent member of The Divine Comedy. Yet the band have taken a back seat with all the other projects he has been working on of late.

Neil said: “There’s nothing imminent. I’ve just got to the point when I have started to consider writing more music. I have been doing things for films and have been writing a short opera for the Royal Opera House. That was very involved. It is called Sevastapol from an essay by Leo Tolstoy when visiting the besieged city of Sebastapol during the Crimean war.

“I just do it to myself. I’m ticking all the boxes so there might be nothing left to do. When you push the boundaries of what you are able to do it makes the things you have already done easier. If I try to write an opera, when I come back to writing music it seems easier. It is like when a sprinter trains with a weight around their waist. When they don’t wear it, it is easier.”

Swallows and Amazons runs at Canterbury's Marlowe Theatre from Tuesday, April 3 to Saturday, April 7. Tickets £10 to £21, concessions £3 off. Box office 01227 787787.