Artist on artist: Neil Hannon on the ‘aesthetically brilliant’ William Morris

Neil Hannon is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter, familiar to most as the frontman of the Divine Comedy.

Revered for his intelligent lyrics and a distinctive pop sound – one that has been given prefixes including ‘baroque’, ‘chamber’ and ‘orchestral’ – Hannon has released 13 albums with the Divine Comedy, as well as two more as Duckworth Lewis Method with Thomas Walsh of the band Pugwash. He has also written music for, among others, the sitcom Father Ted, the 2023 film Wonka, and our own Royal Festival Hall organ as part of the celebrations of its 2013 refurbishment.

This summer Hannon returns to our Royal Festival Hall for the final UK night of the Divine Comedy’s 2026 tour; ahead of which, we invited him to enthuse about an artist of his choice. He chose a man who, like him, revels in the production of a ‘useful beauty’, the 19th century designer, artist, writer, poet and social activist William Morris.

Born in Walthamstow to a wealthy middle-class family in 1834, Morris would become one of the most significant cultural figures in Victorian Britain. A major contributor to the revival of traditional British textile arts, and a leading light in the birth of literature’s modern fantasy genre, Morris was celebrated in his lifetime as a poet. Posthumously however he has become better known for his designs – predominantly for textiles, wallpapers and stained-glass windows – which drove the late 19th century Arts and Crafts movement.

An unashamed polymath, Morris’ ‘bloody minded refusal to stay in his lane’ is one of the many traits Hannon cites as a reason for his ongoing interest and admiration for the revolutionary craftsman.

I first encountered William Morris when I was around 19 or 20. I like museum shops and I’d just moved to London, so I was probably at the Tate or somewhere, trying to look profound. And there I found this anthology of designs by Morris and people associated with him and I was completely smitten because, well, I like pretty stuff. So, as a young man, as well as pictures of Audrey Hepburn I would put William Morris designs on my wall until they became part of my internal brain wallpaper. To the extent that there is even a bit of pinched Morris on the back of my first two albums.

He’s aesthetically brilliant and there’s a great simplicity to his designs. Yet, at the same time, as he often says, everything is there for a reason – it all makes sense. So while his patterns are ornamental, they don’t look like the usual florid wallpaper. Which was why I loved them, even though I didn’t really know what these designs were for – it never occurred to me that it’s basically wallpaper or tapestry or rugs.

I love his designs; my very favourite is ‘Strawberry Thief’. In our spare room I have the ‘Willow Boughs’ wallpaper, mostly because my daughter’s called Willow, so when she comes around she’s faced with lots of willow. But we have an enormous rug in our front room of the ‘Strawberry Thief’ pattern, and it’s wonderful. The colors are amazing, and it’s so playful. He created that design after watching a bird stealing strawberries from his window in Kelmscott Manor; it didn’t come from him simply sitting down and thinking ‘what’s pretty?’, it was a pure artistic moment.

Everybody has to make compromises. Even Morris had to move from his wonderful Red House in Bexleyheath because he had to be nearer to work. The older I get the more I spend all the money I make on making another beautiful record. I don’t make records to buy Ferraris, I make them because there’s nothing that I enjoy more – to feel like you’ve put every ounce of your effort into crafting it right down to the tiniest details. And I get the feeling Morris was somewhat the same. So I have an increasing control-freak energy when it comes to it all, and I’m less willing to let things go than I was in the old days. But letting these things go is important.

I’m a fan of the decorative arts. I’ve always tried to make my records into beautiful objects in their own right. And that’s more important now than ever, because that makes people want to actually buy them. If you want someone to buy a physical object that they don’t necessarily need, because they can hear the music for free, then you have to make it beautiful and something to treasure.

Morris often talks about finding beauty in the details of everyday life. And how the only way to be happy is through enjoying the real nuts and bolts of domesticity. But I find domestic life just impossibly boring. I hate it when it gets to 12.30 and I have to try and think of something to eat. But, then I can’t help thinking Morris probably had people that cooked for him. And it’s easier to revel in the minutia of everyday life if you don’t have to do the real boring stuff.

Morris was right about the dehumanisation aspect of industrialisation, it came to pass. We’ve tried to ameliorate the worst effects of it, but it definitely hasn’t helped anybody. Of course, it’s weird to suggest things were better in the 18th century, because everybody died at the age of 50, if they were lucky, and there was incredible wealth disparity. But you could say there’s just as much wealth disparity now; the only real difference is that our consumerist society has dulled our senses to everything that’s wrong. As long as we have the new gadget, then we don’t think too hard about everything else.

He would have really loved to have brought society back to a sort of proto Middle Ages. If you read News from Nowhere you can tell this is what he wants, as he describes the grand clearances of buildings and a return to an agrarian society where money does not exist, and everybody is beautiful and ruddy of complexion and doesn’t age nearly as quickly. And you’re thinking ‘that’s lovely’, but on its own that view would become very tiresome. Thankfully Morris married that outlook with, in the real world, making beautiful things that would make people’s lives better, and showing a different route.

Would I like to have been present during his time? Only if I was doing interesting arty things as well. Otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to talk to him. I’ve been crippled by the inability to talk to other humans in my life and it’s only by being a pop star that I have been able to converse. Although, I’d have most likely died of whooping cough at the age of a year and a half. I’ve never been rugged, and you had to be rugged to survive. And if I’d have survived into adulthood, I’d probably have been like Aubrey Beardsley.

The closest I’ve got to real fan-boy hero worship is with Scott Walker. But my admiration of people, artists or musicians never gets to the extent of wanting to be like them or copy them – although some may disagree. I hate to use my good friend Thomas Walsh (of Duckworth Lewis Method) as an example, but he cannot hear a single word said against Jeff Lynne or ELO. And I love ELO, they were my first love in many ways, but the idea that Lynne never put a foot wrong is insane. He did the most amazing things every now and again, and that’s enough for me. I don’t need anybody to be 100% perfect. I don’t think David Bowie was 100% perfect by any means, but I absolutely accept he was a genius who brought us to new levels in pop music. And it’s the same with all of these people, Morris included, I think their flaws are just as interesting as their moments of Godlike genius.

Morris tried his hand at all sorts of things, but it’s his intentions that were most amazing. He had a wonderful determination to draw together all these people that thought the same way as him. And so I think the things he most lives on through are his ideas. Those ideas and those connections that really brought the Arts and Crafts movement to the masses. You only need to look at the furniture that he made through Morris & Co. to see how it continued to be an inspiration and an influence for much of mid-century design; those simple, beautiful designs, both Nordic and American.

The thing that always jumps out at me about Morris is his socialism. Even as a socialist, I always feel this slight sadness surrounding them, especially in this era, of that sort of naive hope against hope, that pushing against forces, which I’m not sure that they understand how immovable they are, particularly in terms of human nature and greed. So that’s one of the first things that pops into my head when Morris is mentioned. That, or ‘Strawberry Thief’, or maybe ‘Pimpernel’, that’s a lovely one as well. Also his big hair and beard. I love that he looked a bit like Bernard Cribbins.