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News
9 May 2006

PSB and BBC Concert Orchestra concert

Pet Shop Boys last night played an exclusive concert at the Mermaid Theatre in London in front of an audience of 600 invited guests, including many winners of competitions on Radio 2 and this site.
On stage with Neil and Chris were the 60 (approx) members of the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by Nick Ingman plus Trevor Horn (bass), Phil Palmer (acoustic guitars), Steve Lipson (guitars), Anne Dudley (piano and keyboards), Paul Robinson (drums). Backing vocalists were Lol Creme, Andy Caine, Lucinda Barry and Sylvia Mason-James.
Special guests Rufus Wainwright, Frances Barber (star of the original production of “Closer to Heaven”) and Robbie Williams each sang a song. Trevor Horn was the musical director.
The set list was as follows:
Left to my own devices (full-length Introspective version)
Rent (Liza Minnelli arrangement)
You only tell me you love me when you’re drunk
The Sodom and Gomorrah Show
Casanova in Hell (Rufus Wainwright)
After all (from Battleship Potemkin with film)
Friendly fire (Frances Barber)
Integral

Interval

Numb
It’s alright
Luna Park
Nothing has been proved
Jealousy (extended version with Robbie Williams)
Dreaming of the Queen
It’s a sin

Indefinite leave to remain/West End girls

The opera singer Sally Bradshaw also sang on “Left to my own devices and “It’s alright”.
The concert will be broadcast by BBC Radio 2 on May 27th at 8.30 pm.
Click on the link for a report on the concert in The Sun newspaper.

Pet Text
15 May 2026

The first preview of the Jonathan Harvey/Pet Shop Boys musical, “Closer to Heaven” was performed on this day in 2001 at the Arts Theatre in London, with the official press night following on May 31st. The original cast album was released several months later and is still available on streaming services.

Neil and Chris had originally started writing the musical together with Jonathan Harvey in 1996. “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.” 

Since its first run of shows in 2001, “Closer to Heaven” has returned to London theatre stages several times, most recently at the Turbine Theatre in 2024. It also premiered in Brisbane, Australia in 2005, in Brighton, UK in 2009 and in Dallas, USA in 2010. And one of its main characters, Billie Trix, returned in 2019 with her own one-woman show, “Musik”, also written by Jonathan Harvey with some new Tennant/Lowe songs.


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