PRESS | madeleinehyland

‘...suggesting the embattled protagonists of Fairytale of New York re-conceived by Jacques Brel for a Brecht cabaret scripted by Charles Bukowski.....one of the year’s most exhilarating, exciting and visceral debuts, they deserve to be huge’ - Folk Radio UK

'A very enticing proposition indeed...they have seemingly arrived fully formed, because their debut album is overflowing with the good stuff, from beautiful ballads such as Little Miss Why So and Shower Day, to the drum-laden dramatics of New York Torch Song.'

- The Crack

With undeniable stage presence, a genuine love of performance and a voice with the power to stop you in your tracks, it's no surprise that London (UK) based performer Madeleine Hyland has taken the inevitable next step and created her own band...currently on stage with 'Wolf Hall' on Broadway, Madeleine is preparing to lay down the tracks for a debut album with band mate Joey Batey. The actress and singer has a voice with real depth and soul and the delivery of a true performer...Playing the role of an impossibly perfect, yet ultimately convincing muse and lover, Hyland brought a level of drama to 'Incapable of Love' that raised it way above a simple break-up song. It became a very real story, something that needed to be seen as well as heard - wonderfully theatrical yet paradoxically believable. Implausibly beautiful and sparking with sex appeal Hyland is in her element as the woman Rowland, incomprehensibly, ultimately rejects. Her energy is infectious and she and the Dexy's frontman crackle with tension as they belt out note for note at each other. The result is passionate and compelling.'

- Scout Beck, Chimeo

'...as we moved away from the Grave of the Unknown Warrior, a door opened and a woman in magnificent Tudor dress glided across the nave. We, like many others, fell mutely into step behind her as she swept onward, and it was only when she reached the choir that she stopped and looked round at the little court she’d gathered to herself. This, it turned out, was Katharine of Aragon (Madeleine Hyland), dressed as if she’d just stepped out of a Holbein painting. Lighting on one man in the crowd, she directed herself to him as if he were the king and, in a Spanish accent, began pleading for him to recognise her as his true wife, in a speech from Act II, Scene 4 of Henry VIII. It was hard to be unmoved at such close quarters'

- The Idle Woman (All the Places that the Eye of Heaven Visits, Shakespeare's Globe at Westminster Abbey)

'Hyland identifies most strongly with her character’s hatred of hypocrisy. She realizes that he stands at a crossroads, and she manifests this conflict through powerful soliloquy' - Dessi Gomez, NDSMC Observer (Hamlet)

‘Actress Madeleine Hyland plays the ideal of beauty sought then abandoned over five songs, first glimpsed as a gowned goddess smoking on a chaise longue, but soon having earthier dialogues with Rowland. By “Incapable of Love”, this melodrama has ended in her tears’. - Nick Hasted, The Independent

‘The first of nine nights at the Duke of York’s Theatre in London surpassed even last year’s astonishing performances. At the heart of the show, and the album, are the five numbers that chart our narrator’s falling for, wooing, winning and spurning his object of desire, played, and sung, by Madeleine Hyland... It’s magnificent, and funny, and excruciating: pure artifice that feels thoroughly real, making it near-perfect both as theatre and as pop.' - David Bennun, The Daily Mail

'The appearance of the singer-actress takes it up a notch. I’m Always Going To Love You is a swirling drama, with Hyland swaying at one side of the stage then the next, before things really kick off. “Kevin, don’t talk to me,” she screams, ending the song fighting back tears...This Is What She’s Like finishes things off. Hyland returns and stands there. She doesn’t sing; she doesn’t need to. This was dramatic, like nothing else you’ll see on stage today.' - The Journal

'The frosty/funny exchanges with singer Madeleine Hyland on ‘Incapable Of Love’ and ‘I’m Always Going To Love You’ offer more evidence of the constant struggle between light and dark at the heart of Rowland’s best Dexys songs' - Alan Woodhouse, NME

'...the drama came alive with her appearance on stage, smiling flirtatiously at Rowland before flying into a rage as their fictional affair turned sour.' - Ludovic Hunter-Tilney, Financial Times

‘[Madeleine Hyland]... is a crucial component of both the album and film’s success and Evans found her presence, and her combination and interaction with Rowland particularly captivating: ‘When you see their performances up close it’s just so intense, they were truly living and breathing it, you couldn’t keep your eyes off it’ - Craig Austin, Wales Arts Review

'It was Rowland’s love interest and new band member Madeleine Hyland who brought a refreshing twist to the stage. A young and beautiful starlet, Hyland captured the audience’s hearts during her performance of I’m Always Going to Love, at one point screaming at a detached Rowland for toying with her emotions, adding a sense of intensity and vibrancy to the mix.' - Harriet Gibson, The Upcoming

'Kevin Rowland’s vocal spar with Madeleine Hyland bursts at the seams with kitchen sink drama and ruptured rationale'

- Colin Somerville, The Scotsman

‘The audience, completely unfamiliar with the songs, were swept along by the sheer bravado of it all and won over completely with the arrival of Shakespearean actress Madeleine Hyland for a pair of show-stopping duets. Sashaying on stage in a glimmering black dress, hands on hips, exuding the air of a fifties’ femme fatale, she had the stage presence to match Rowland’s. They performed an incendiary ‘I’m Always Going to Love You’, that ended with Hyland lying sobbing on the floor, and then the darkly comic ‘Incapable of Love’, before she vanished again into the shadows to rapturous applause.' - Kevin McGrath, Wales Arts Review

' 'She Got A Wiggle' introduces the object of affection, played and sung brilliantly by Madeleine Hyland. With her blood red lips, hands on hips, and the dark beauty of a 1940s film noir femme fatale, Hyland (an actor by trade) commands the stage, and the audience’s attention. Rowland and Hyland are magnificent ...and imbue the drama of the love story gone wrong with heartfelt emotion.' - Culture Northern Ireland

‘Three of the pivotal songs...played brilliantly by Madeleine Hyland... It was the highlight of a great show’ - Cambridge Music Reviews

'Madeleine appeared...The dark haired femme fatale has a very striking voice that intertwines brilliantly with Kevin’s powerfully soulful delivery' - Shaun McCoy, Liverpool Live TV

‘Madeleine Hyland shimmies over like Rita Hayworth in Gilda.’ - Stuart Bailie, BBC

‘When Maddy took the stage for what – ‘I’m Always Going To Love You’ – every last girl at the front lost her heart and swooned unashamedly as she stood there smiling, owning us all, flashing a suspender belt, sauntering over to Kevin to kiss him full on the lips, down the front of the stage sobbing at the tempestuous end of ‘Incapable Of Love’. Oh, it was theatre, swagger and grace and sweeping gestures every note, but we believed it, every word.…. The holy triumvirate of ‘I’m Always Going To Love You’ and ‘Incapable Of Love’ exceeded expectations. (Can you believe that? Exceeded expectations!) Maddy was… I cannot even begin to form the words so let’s move quickly along and pretend I wasn’t more starstruck than the time I interviewed Yoko Ono at the Dakota.’ - Everett True, Collapse Board

'a magnetic presence' - David Owens, Wales Online

‘...an attacking, considerably more theatrical vocalist’ - Daniel Paton, music OMH

'...the formidable, flamenco-esque Madeleine Hyland...the highpoints are numerous and dizzying: Hyland, after being dropped during ‘Incapable Of Love’, runs to the front row to steal an audience member’s drink to calm her nerves to mass applause' - Jake Kennedy, Brighton Source

'Madeleine Hyland, on the other hand, is a different creature entirely. She sings on the record and plays Rowland’s dream woman; a flirty Hollywood glamour puss, she rebukes him with throaty wails that would be at home in any of the nearby theatres...the audience feels outraged on her behalf at Rowland’s feckless behaviour. We feel sorry for her, and the crowd joins in with her lines in an act of solidarity.' - Helen Clarke, OMH

'...with the appearance of singer/actress Madeleine Hyland, they joined in; egging her on in her war of attrition with Rowland'

- Alan O'Hare, Get Into This

'...everything is turned up another two notches...actress-singer Madeleine Hyland...gives Rowland a proper smacker on the mouth so he spends the rest of the show wearing her lippy' - Simon Price, The Independent

'As Hyland sashays back onstage like a classic B-movie diva during an epic This Is What She's Like, Rowland may be on his knees, but the return of Dexys is a triumph.' - Neil Cooper, The Herald Scotland

'The emphasis of the tour is very much on the new album, which features actress Madeleine Hyland as the love interest as the new songs are threaded into a narrative, which is by turns profound, hilarious, and heart-wrenchingly sad.' - Stuart Filmer, Express and Star

'As Elizabeth, Madeleine Hyland becomes more impressive as she disintegrates in grief...The cast work the room like politicians at a fund-raiser, lounging on windowsills behind the audience, swinging around pillars, playing out the action across the full length of the room. Occasional lapses of visibility are tiny niggles, a small price to pay to participate in what felt like a genuine event.

Let’s hope we see more of its kind.' - Tracey Sinclair, Exeunt Magazine (Richard III)

“Madeleine Hyland’s Masha conveyed the sense of a truly rich character.”

- John Daly-Peoples, National Business Review (Three Sisters)

“There is a strong chemistry between Sunderland and Madeleine Hyland, who brings a Gothic self-absorption to her depiction of Masha.”

- Paul Simei-Barton, NZ Herald

'This is theatre that includes people, moves people and shows them, ultimately that art is supposed to be about the people and for the people; indeed, it's theatre as Shakespeare intended it. Congratulations Players.'

- Imogen Neale, The Lumière Reader (Cymbeline)

“Madeleine Hyland skillfully played Desdemona as a strong woman in denial about her husband, rather than the traditional naïve sweetie. This strength allowed the early scenes with the newly-wed Othello and Desdemona to overflow with passion and excitement.”

- Ewan Kingston, The Lumière Reader

“Madeleine Hyland, who looks as if she could have stepped out of a Thackeray novel, creates a touching Desdemona whose careful upbringing has not prepared her for the passions aroused in her by Othello.” - Laurie Atkinson, The Dominion Post

“Madeleine Hyland gives us a thoroughly strong-willed, if naively passionate Desdemona. Her power to turn her senator (read governor's official) father, Brabantio (Steven Ray) from appalled opposition to her coupling with Othello to duty-bound acceptance of their marriage lays a firm foundation for her determination to plead the cause of the wronged Cassio, which is what gets her into such lethal trouble thanks to Iago's distortions. The question of her honesty is nicely shaded by her ability to "beguile the thing I am by seeming otherwise" when she fears Othello may be lost at sea.” - John Smythe, Theatreview

“Madeleine Hyland's villainous Antonio teams up with Laurel Devenie's Sebastian (Alonso's brother), playing it like a vaudeville double act, although with appreciably subtle class” - Nik Smythe, Theatreview

'Hyland's convincing performance and outstanding singing voice are highlights of the show.' - Kathryn Van Beek, Theatreview