On March 19 two books by Chris Heath – Literally from 1990, and Pet Shop Boys versus America from 1993 – were reissued by the Penguin imprint Cornerstone, completely redesigned by Farrow design, and new introductions and afterwords written by the Pet Shop Boys and Chris Heath.
On April 21, Discovery, the film of the Pet Shop Boys 1994 South American tour – “the tour I enjoyed the most,” Chris notes – is released on DVD, accompanied by the release for the first time of a CD of their performance.
On May 7, a new Pet Shop Boys song, the ten-minute “Cricket wife”, is released on CD (accompanied by “West End girls (New lockdown version)”) with the periodical Annually 2021. “Cricket wife”, written during lockdown, began as an extended piece of music created by Chris. “My mum asked me if I would write a piece of classical music for her,” he explains. “I thought, ‘Well, I’ve got nothing else better to do.’ ‘Classical’ in inverted commas, obviously – I’m no classical composer. In the style of classical music.” When Neil received it, it struck him that it might fit a poem he had written some years before. “It’s really about my parents,” he says. “My father played cricket for many years.”
On December 26, the Pet Shop Boys host a three-hour radio show, Pet Shop Boys, Takeover, on BBC Radio 2 between 9pm and midnight, playing a selection of favourite songs; a broadcast also billed by Radio 2 as “Neil and Chris’s Unpredictable Party Playlist”. (The show has been pre-recorded on the afternoon of December 13.) The Pet Shop Boys have recorded five new jingles for the show, titled “Takeover”, “Strings”, “Beautiful”, “Boxing Day” and “Electric”, and introduce a joyously eclectic selection of music, including records by Matt Monro, Alcazar, Paul Weller (their recent remix of his song “Cosmic Fringes”), Gloria Ann Taylor, Eric Prydz, Françoise Hardy and The 1975. “We’ve only ever done radio when we can play records that we want,” says Chris. “I love doing radio. There’s something very satisfying about broadcasting to the nation.”
The Pet Shop Boys perform the first of two consecutive nights’ concerts in Osaka, Japan.
The Release Tour comes to Athens, Greece.
The Boys bring their Pandemonium Tour to London’s O2 Arena—a sold-out performance. After the concert, they host a small party for family and friends, including a number of celebrities. Neil is especially pleased to find that his eight-year-old nephew enjoyed the show.
The second of two PSB/Take That shows in Dublin.
The British Film Institute in London screens the classic silent film Battleship Potemkin, accompanied by the recorded Tennant-Lowe score from 2004—the first public screening of the film with their score in a cinematic venue. Neil puts in an appearance to provide a brief introduction.
Neil attends David Byrne’s performance this evening at London’s Hammersmith Apollo, which afterward he describes enthusiastically on the PSB website as ‘exhilarating and beautifully staged.’
Currently in France, the Pet Shop Boys perform an essentially unpublicized ‘private’ concert at the 2019 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Meanwhile, today’s issue of The Times Literary Supplement offers a glowing review of Neil’s recent book One Hundred Lyrics and a Poem.
The Pet Shop Boys perform in Frankfurt, Germany.
They bring their Dreamworld Tour show to Dublin, Ireland.
They headline this evening at the Kalorama Festival in Lisbon, Portugal.