Neil Hannon of The Divine Comedy has said he has been feeling "chocolaty" of late as he's been spending the last while writing songs for the upcoming Willy Wonka movie.
Directed by Paddington director, Paul King, Wonka will focus on a young Mozart of chocolate and how he met the Oompa-Loompas on one of his earliest adventures and stars Dune leading man Timothée Chalamet, Sally Hawkins and Olivia Coleman.
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Speaking on Saturday night’s Tommy Tiernan Show, Neil said, "The writing has been sort of chocolaty recently. I got this job writing the songs for the new Wonka film, which is incredible, I still don’t know how this came to be so for the past year and a bit I’ve just been writing Wonka songs, which is amazing."
"I got the script and the director, Paul, pointed at bits and said, `song here’ and I started writing songs and he either liked them or he didn’t."
Paddington 2 stars including Tom Davis, Simon Farnaby and Kobna Holdbrook-Smith will also appear in Wonka, which will be in cinemas on March 17, 2023.
It’s described as an exploration of the "vivid, mythical beginnings of the imaginative young inventor before he becomes the renowned scrumdiddlyumptious Mozart of chocolate" and the events in the film take place before the events of Roald Dahl's famous book.
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Asked if he was very knowledgeable musically, Neil joked, "Yes. I know everything. I don’t play many instruments. I can play the piano, just about, and I play the guitar a bit."
When Tommy mentioned Bob Dylan’s Oscar-winning song Things Have Changed for the film The Wonderboys, Neil said, "This is slightly different because this is a musical and the actors are singing my songs so I might be easier to write a song that’s roughly about the film so Bob Dylan had it easy compared to me."
The debonair singer has just released a best of album Charmed Life - The Best Of The Divine Comedy and plays Cork Opera House on May 17, Olympia Theatre, Dublin May 19 and Waterfront Hall, Belfast on May 21.
The Tommy Tiernan Show continues on RTÉ One on Saturday night.
