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.”
Several months after its U.K. world premiere, the film Women in Love has its U.S. debut in New York City. It’s mentioned here not on account of its (in)famous nude wrestling scene—which prompts more than one critic to suggest it should instead have been titled Men in Love—but because of a totally different scene that briefly features a teenaged Neil Tennant as one of several unnamed ‘child extras,’ a job for which he had been paid £3 per day. (He then used the money to buy a copy of the Beatles’ ‘White Album.’)
The Pet Shop Boys appear on U.S. television on The Tonight Show. Chris walks off mid-performance because the camera is ignoring him.
Neil attends Elton John’s 50th-birthday costume party dressed as a royal dragoon.
Neil has dinner with Robbie Williams and several others at Luciano, a posh London restaurant.
The Boys conclude the South American leg of their Fundamental world tour with a show in Santiago, Chile.
Having spent roughly two months in southern California working on their next album, Chris and Neil are now back in London to attend the opening night at Sadler’s Wells Theatre of the second run of their ballet The Most Incredible Thing, which includes a new scene and several other modifications. This same day, an interview with Neil in which he discusses the ballet can be heard on BBC Radio 2’s Weekend Wogan.
They’re guests on Graham Norton’s TV show, during which they perform their current single, ‘The Pop Kids.’
At home during the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic, Chris records (the day before) and posts (today) a 13-minute video of him performing a solo instrumental rendition of ‘It’s Alright’ on his digital piano.
Neil is one of several vocalists (also including Jake Shears) who appear with the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra conducted by Anne Dudley at the London Soundtrack Festival, performing classic film songs. Neil sings ‘Everybody’s Talkin’’ from Midnight Cowboy, ‘Nothing Has Been Proved’ from Scandal, and (with Shears) ‘Rent,’ which had been used in Saltburn.