Six years before Italian composer Dario Marianelli wrote his Academy Award-winning score for Joe Wright’s Atonement, he composed the score for a little-known British dark comedy entitled Happy Now. This quirky score in many ways foreshadows his score for Terry Gilliam’s The Brothers Grimm, which came several years later. This music - crowned by a memorable main theme and performed by the Munich Symphony Orchestra - has never before been released in any format...

The soundtrack to 2001's Happy Now is a fun, quirky score which also houses a number of beautiful themes. A lot of the tracks, to me, sounded like they would fit perfectly with a big screen production of an Agatha Christie Poirot or Miss Marple film.

There's drama and suspense here... but equally there is quirkiness and much humour. One of the most beautiful tracks is the classically inspired 'Hommage to David Rose' Then there is the western inspired 'Bonanzaland' which beautifully captures all the cliches of the genre whilst being original in it's delivery.

This album was certainly worth the nine year wait.

8

Darren Rea