May 2001
On May 31 the Pet Shop Boys’ first musical, Closer to Heaven, opens at the Arts Theatre in London. (Preview performances have been running since May 15.) They had first mentioned their ambition to write stage musicals in a Smash Hits interview in 1986, and had been considering it seriously for the past decade. “We wanted to write something that wasn’t Les Mis or Rent,” says Chris. “A play about contemporary life with contemporary music that was not long and boring.” In 1996 they had started writing what became Closer to Heaven with Jonathan Harvey, learning as they went. “The closer we got to finishing,” says Chris, “the more we realised how important it is that there are no extraneous, meaningless bits. Even though it’s a song, the lyrics are also dialogue.” Closer to Heaven is set in a nightclub — “we know about nightclubs,” says Neil — and revolves around the stories of a young Irishman, Straight Dave, apparently cocky but struggling with his sexuality and his dreams of being a pop star, and of a nightclub hostess Billie Trix whose years of great beauty and success have long passed. “We haven’t set out to do a big West End musical,” says Neil. “It’s an attempt to do something new.” There is some early validation from Elton John who, after the opening night, tells the Evening Standard that “the comfortable world of the West End musical has been blown apart.”
