When she was a child, Florence Welch sang, briefly, in the school choir. Nobody familiar with her voice — and, with three No 1 albums and a Glastonbury headline slot to her name, that’s a fair few people — will be surprised to learn that she struggled to blend in. As an adult performer and songwriter, she has built her reputation on melodrama, vocally and lyrically (and, see below, in her personal life). That’s served her well as a professional musician. In the school choir, it was quite another matter. “I’d be singing,” Welch recalls, “and the kids in the row in front would turn round with expressions that basically said, ‘What the f*** are you doing?’”

It isn’t hard to picture. Ever since,