This is the sad tale of the opera Alan Moore almost made, and Damon Albarn did make! You can get the full story here.

There has been much discussion on why Alan left the project he had initially agreed to do with Albarn. From Alan’s perspective the reason was that he thought “it might be handy if Gorillaz were prepared to do a little quid pro quo” and that maybe “they’d do a couple pages for the magazine”. When it became apparent that this wasn’t going to happen, Moore left the whole concept behind. I’m sure Damon has a different version of events.

The opera itself is about John Dee, the 16th century alchemist, and opened in the Manchester International festival this week. Find below a couple of songs from the opera.