DVD/I50: PET SHOP BOYS: DISCOVERY - LIVE IN RIO 1994 (Roberto Berliner, 1994)

Finally released on DVD after 26 years, DISCOVERY finds Neil and Chris playing to an enthusiastic audience at the Metropolitan Stadium, Rio de Janeiro.  After the PERFORMANCE tour in 1991, their next one visited countries they had never played: Singapore, Australia, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Argentina and Brazil. 

 

 

The Pets wanted a less structured production: gone is the avant-garde theatricality of PERFORMANCE and they delivered a 'straight' stadium rock show, selecting mostly upbeat songs, and instead of the previous tour's dance ensemble, here they are accompanied by four go-go dancers, and Katie Kissoon on backing vocals.

 

 

Unsurprisingly the previous year's VERY fills up most of the set list with songs from PLEASE, ACTUALLY, INTROSPECTIVE and BEHAVIOUR also featured.

 

Hidden interpolated covers really pop - ONE IN A MILLION morphes into Culture Beat's MR VAIN while Corona's RHYTHM OF THE NIGHT bursts out of LEFT TO MY OWN DEVICES!

Shelf or charity shop?  A shelfer - it's taken long enough to get here!  So happy this great show is finally available on DVD, after the dour PERFORMANCE it gives the Pets a chance to bring the party vibe helped by a loud and happy audience.  As well as the great covers already mentioned, there is a hugely effective combination of IT'S A SIN and I WILL SURVIVE.

DVD/150: PET SHOP BOYS PERFORMANCE (Eric Watson, 1991)

For their second tour, Pet Shop Boys collaborated with English National Opera director David Alden and designer David Fielding for a show that is easier to admire than to like.

Alden's avant-garde staging has not aged well and dancers filmed in close-up while gurning for the back of the Birmingham NEC is never good but it maintains interest if not involvement.

In a vague narrative Neil and Chris travel from boarding school to Heaven!

The setlist includes THIS MUST BE THE PLACE I WAITED YEARS TO LEAVE, IT'S A SIN, LOSING MY MIND, WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE THIS?, MY OCTOBER SYMPHONY, I'M NOT SCARED, WE ALL FEEL BETTER IN THE DARK, SO SORRY I SAID, SUBURBIA, SO HARD, OPPORTUNITIES, HOW CAN YOU EXPECT TO BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY?, RENT, WHERE THE STREETS HAVE NO NAME, WEST END GIRLS, JEALOUSY, ALWAYS ON MY MIND and YOUR FUNNY UNCLE.

Shelf or charity shop?  A reluctant keeper - as you might have guessed, it's not my favourite PSB show; there's not much joy in the show and although it is designed as a through-show, the lack of audience involvement leaves it cold - only at the end with ALWAYS ON MY MIND are the auidence included in the show. But some of the imagery lingers in the mind and Eric Watson - a longtime photographer of the Boys - did a good job at capturing the flavour of the show.  Favourite moments include Neil and Chris in their orange and pink dayglo suits - Tintin's Thompson Twins never looked so good, Chris' solemn hip-hop dancing in his shirt and pants to WE ALL FEEL BETTER IN THE DARK and Sylvia Mason-James' glorious version of RENT.

MUSIK at Leicester Square Theatre - is it or isn't it?

We saw the very short run of MUSIK a few weeks ago, fresh from it's Edinburgh Festival debut and since then I have wrestled with quite a few questions - is it theatre?  Should I blog or not?  As it was only an hour long I will finish this off in a few paragraphs.

The 2001 show CLOSER TO HEAVEN made #37 in my ongoing list of favourite musicals, primarily for the Pet Shop Boys score and for some of the performances in the original production.  It had been meant to run from May till September 2001 but initial sold-out houses made the producers extend it to January 2002, however the subsequent negligible press reviews and declining audiences made them close in October.  The cast recording remains a favourite with it's mix of PSB bangers for the club scenes and big ballads for the characters: the millstone around the show's neck is the facile book by Jonathan Harvey.

What made that original production memorable - despite the score - was the barn-storming performance of Frances Barber as the nightclub star Billie Trix.  A legend in her own mind, Billie was a former leading light of the 1960s art scene who has ended up in a tawdry gay club, surviving on drugs and ego.  She is such a memorable character - especially as played by Barber who seemed to be channeling Anita Pallenberg - that it is a surprise it has taken 18 years for the Pets and Harvey to revisit the character in a new show.   MUSIK is Billie's latest incarnation, an hour-long cabaret based on her life -- which oddly doesn't include her referencing the CLOSER TO HEAVEN years.

Barber first appears cloaked, with an eye-patch - "Madonna stole my idea" - and a bizarre fascinator that looks like a bat mating with her head, singing the first of the six Pet Shop Boys that punctuate the piece "Mongrel" about her conception in the ruins of Berlin by a rapey Russian soldier and her teenage mother.  After a minor folk hit in East Germany "Cover Me In Calamine", Billie escapes to the West  and gains an entrée to Andy Warhol's Factory where of course she suggests he paint soup cans.

It's odd that what takes Jonathan Harvey and PSB an hour to do, Stephen Sondheim accomplishes in just over 5 minutes with "I'm Still Here" from FOLLIES as they are essentially telling the same story of careering "from career to career".   Where they differ is Carlotta Campion is in on the joke, Billie Trix is too deluded to notice the appalling reviews and the insults: she proudly says her Mother Courage was judged "incomprehensible" or that Jean-Paul Satre found her pretentious.

So Jonathan Harvey sends his character rattling down the years like a bagatelle, through her art-house classic "The Masturbation of Race" where she played Norway, her disco years, her down and out years in London living in a Soho telephone box - shades of Marianne Faithfull and her drug years of sitting on a wall in St Anne's Court - and her friendship with Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin who she met when Emin pissed up against her telephone box.  That's kind of the level of Harvey's script which again is desperately thin but Barber makes bricks from his straw.

Once again Frances Barber inhabits Billie Trix like a possessed creature... growling and prowling the stage, chopping up lines and spitting out her lines between bawling like a fishwife or chuckling huskily to herself.  I have to give it to her that she perfectly sang the Pet Shop Boys songs, husky and raw, making "Friendly Fire" and "For Every Moment" perfect anthems.  It again illustrated the eternal question of whether you can separate the person from the performance.  It was a close-run thing.

The PSB songs are fine for the show although ultimately they feel like b-sides cobbled together apart from CLOSER TO HEAVEN's "Friendly Fire" and the final song "For Every Moment" which is suitably anthemic.  Director Josh Seymour just about kept the tension running through the hour - it dipped noticeably towards the end during Billie's 'telephone box' era.

I am glad I saw it - Neil Tennant attended the night we went with David Walliams - and the PSB songs are living on after I downloaded them, but Harvey's gossamer-thin contribution is fading fast from memory.

50 Favourite Musicals: 37: CLOSER TO HEAVEN (2001) (Neil Tennant, Chris Lowe)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life: 

First performed: 2001, Arts Theatre

First seen by me: as above

Productions seen: two

Score: Neil Tennant, Chris Lowe
Book: Jonathan Harvey

Plot:  Shell meets her gay estranged father Vic again at the club he owns, where she also meets Straight Dave an Irish bartender and Billie Trix, the club's star performer who is a druggy former pop singer and actress. Shell and Straight Dave start a relationship just as he is offered a place in a new boy band, but when Dave also meets Mile End Lee, Billie Trix' drug dealer, he finds himself falling in love again...

Five memorable numbers: FRIENDLY FIRE, MY NIGHT, POSITIVE ROLE MODEL, OUT OF MY SYSTEM, SOMETHING SPECIAL

Right this is tricky... how can this musical beat some good competition to get this place in my list when it has such a bad book?  Any fule kno that a musical needs a good book to hold the show together, no matter how great the score, and Jonathan Harvey's book is truly one of the worst.  It clatters along without any regard for creating even remotely interesting characters - maybe Billie Trix and Straight Dave at a push.  The worst offence is that the last quarter of the musical DEMANDS we understand the pain of Straight Dave when his young lover dies from a drug overdose but the character has had only a few scenes and is fairly two-dimensional - it's difficult to feel a character's pain when he only appears to have met his lover twice.  No, CLOSER TO HEAVEN is here on the basis of it's original production, directed by Gemma Bodinetz which, though hampered by the afore-mentioned book, had the benefit of performers who managed to create depth through their own personalities into the characters that the script refused to do.  Paul Keating as Straight Dave, Stacey Roca as Shell, Tom Walker - aka Jonathan Pie - as Mile End Lee, David Burt as Vic - who, when CTH closed early, simply jumped ship to TABOO, the other gay pop musical set in Soho clubland - and primarily Frances Barber, gloriously over the top as the Anita Pallenberg-esque Billie Trix.  The original production was only meant to run from May till September 2001 but initial packed houses made The Really Useful Company extend it to January 2002, however the shaky reviews and declining audiences made them think again and it closed in October.  If proof be needed to the galvanizing presence of the original cast, a 2015 revival at the Union Theatre was appalling; without the benefit of strong, charismatic performers with good voices, the plot made even less sense and even the Pet Shop Boys score couldn't rescue it.  The cast recording of the PSB score remains a favourite with it's mix of PSB bangers for the club scenes and big ballads for the characters: it is very noticeable that any character development at all happens through the songs and not through the scenes in the book.     

Well I think I have found out one good reason why it closed... there is no video recordings of the original production anywhere apart from this 47 second clip of Frances Barber, Paul Keating, Stacey Roca, David Burt and Tom Walker singing the opening number MY NIGHT (although the cast recording is dubbed over it).  Indeed, Neil Tennant bemoaned the show's bad marketing after it closed.  There is a YouTube video of the same number filmed from the back of the Arts Theatre but it's an awful transfer.  Hunt out the casting recording to get a better idea of the PSB score.

CLOSER TO HEAVEN is still out of reach

Since it's unsuccessful first run in 2001 I have often wondered when the Pet Shop Boys musical CLOSER TO HEAVEN would get a revival.  Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe's electronic score finds room for both their signature dance beats and their introspective ballads and I've played the original cast recording regularly over the years.

Despite showcasing a magnificent star performance from Frances Barber as the drug-addled Eurotrash hostess Billie Trix, the original production foundered at the Arts Theatre after 5 months with most critics pointing the finger at Jonathan Harvey's paper-thin book which fundamentally damaged the show despite the goodwill that the score and cast generated.

But now - and I might have guessed this would be the case - the enterprising Union Theatre in Southwark have revived the show and the fact that it sold out in a few days shows that I wasn't the only one wanting to see it again.  I had hoped that Harvey's book would be re-hauled for this second twirl round the go-go pole.  Sadly that is not the case - and it looks even more threadbare on the unadorned Union stage.

I suspect that this is also down to the equally threadbare casting.  Like the Bridewell Theatre in the 1990s, it's great to have a theatre which regularly stages musicals that otherwise would not be revived but it must be said that the shows are cast with performers from the second or third rungs of performers.  A scan through the programme mostly reveal understudies, fringe and regional productions, cruise ship performers or first-job from Drama School.  Now I know everyone has to start somewhere... but not the lead surely?

CLOSER THAN HEAVEN follows two young characters whose lives intersect at a Soho gay club run by Vic, a hard-drinking, hard-snorting self-confessed "vampire" who lives at night.  Vic's daughter Shell from a short-lived straight relationship makes contact with him after many years and they struggle to establish a relationship.  At the same time, the effortlessly sexy - and Irish - Straight Dave arrives looking for work as a bartender although he soon establishes himself as the club's lead dancer.

Shell and Dave are attracted to each other and through her job as a PA to a gay record producer Bob Saunders, Dave is lined up to be the new member of his boy band Up & Coming.  Dave warily keeps the nasty Saunders at arm's length but finds himself attracted to the surly Mile End Lee, a young drug dealer who supplies Vic and his temperamental Eurotrash hostess Billie Trix in drugs.

Vic tries to clean up his life and club to impress Shell but when he discovers Mile End Lee delivering a large drugs package to Billie, he fires her and confiscates it.  Shell sees Dave and Lee getting physical in the club toilet and she dumps him.  Lee and Dave have a night together but Dave later dies from a ketamine overdose.  Dave becomes a pop star in his own right.

The End.

All the characters are expertly introduced during the opening number MY NIGHT but after the interval, Harvey's anorexic book starts coming apart at the seams.  Vic, Shell and Billie are neglected midway through the second act as the spotlight is switched to Straight Dave and Mile End Lee who promptly dies which leads to the big eleven o'clock teary ballad FOR ALL OF US, but it's efforts to get the tear ducts working fail because we are being asked to care for a secondary character who has had minimal effect on our sympathies up until then.

The show's climax - Dave's ascent to stardom - is unexplained and is obviously there to end the show with an uptempo number - but in this revival, the original last number, the excellent Barry White-sampled POSITIVE ROLE MODEL is ditched for VOCAL, a track from the last Pet Shop Boys album.

Director Gene David Kirk plods through the troublesome second act relying on the lights, music and his seven-strong ensemble to bump their crotches - no hiding when you are in the front row believe me - and grind their bums to hopefully distract from the paucity of content.  Said ensemble are excellent by the way but sadly Owen pointed out the similarity in Philip Joel's choreography to the famous, embarrassing flailing-about of Westlife's first appearance on Irish TV.  Once pointed out I couldn't get it out of my mind.

As in the original production some actors made the most of what they had to work with.  Although a bit shrill, I liked Amy Matthews' Shell as well as Craig Berry's blokey Vic while Ken Christiansen made the most of the viperous Bob Saunders.  Praise too for Ben Kavanagh as Flynn, Saunders' bitchy assistant.

The main problem was in the performances of Katie Meller as Billie Trix and Jared Thompson as Straight Dave.  As I said above, Frances Barber created a wonderful sacre monstre that covered up some of the dodgy, fag-haggy type lines Harvey gives her and sang her big solo FRIENDLY FIRE with a world-weary sadness that was really stopped the show.  Sadly Meller just doesn't have the wattage to deliver, her casting is a complete mystery other than I guess she's affordable.

Jared Thompson was even more problematic.  Paul Keating played Straight Dave at the Arts and was believable as the sexually-confused new kid on the go-go box while also being charismatic enough to make you believe in the other characters' interest in him but Thompson appears to not so much act as point his lantern jaw, floppy hair and erect nipples at people.  There was another more irritating problem - I had to laugh when he lisped through the line "Why does everyone think I'm gay".  Because they have ears?  What made me truly baffled though was in Thompson's duet with Connor Brabyn's Mile End Lee in the second act, Brabyn showed he had an excellent, strong singing voice - how on earth was he not cast as the lead?

So there we are, CLOSER TO HEAVEN has been revived and it is still has problems.  Not the first time a great score has been allied to a weak book but all the more frustrating when you can see it's obvious potential.  I am guessing we might not see another production anytime soon.

PSB have been very supportive of the show which is good of them and Neil Tennant was actually in the third row at our performance - I was quite sanguine about it, I only looked round a handful of times!  Oh for the chance to question him about what he really thinks of it.

I have been playing the original cast recording ever since seeing it and believe that this show could be successful if they dropped Jonathan Harvey's script which has all the depth of a Boyz magazine comic strip.

Three months after CLOSER TO HEAVEN closed, Boy George's TABOO opened a few minutes walk away from the Arts and ran for over a year.  Both dealt with gay club culture, had a bisexual leading character and of course both had scores by artists who had come to prominence in the 1980s.  In retrospect I think why TABOO survived was down to a sympathetic, inclusive outlook which CLOSER TO HEAVEN ultimately lacks.  You simply don't care for any of Harvey's characters no matter how good the songs they are singing.

Last week we went to the first night of THE MOST INCREDIBLE THING, a new ballet at Sadler's Wells which has a score by the Pet Shop Boys. Now when you call something by that title you better be ready for the most obvious rejoinder... as here it comes again!

It was announced at the top of the show that it was the first performance in front of an audience and if they needed to stop the show then bear with them. Luckily they didn't have to but I suspect that the announcement was made for us to go easy on it.

The source for the ballet is a Hans Christian Anderson short story - short enough to be reprinted in the programme! Leo works in a dreary factory but is inspired to enter a competition to design The Most Incredible Thing that the King announces will result in the winner being granted half his kingdom and the hand of the Princess.

However the nasty Karl has his eyes set on the Princess and when Leo wins the competition with his magical clock... no, CLOCK... Karl mash it up guy and wins the Princess as what can be more incredible than smashing The Most Incredible Thing? We get a happy ending of course but it's all a bit perfunctory.

I liked the PSB score but it possibly could have done with more light and shade to give the dancers something to interpret. Neil Tennant - who was sat in the row in front of us - said that one of the challenges was to tell a 'book' show through the medium of contemporary dance and I guess it succeeds but with no interest generated in the story or characters as such it's hard to say it's an overall success.

Javier de Frutos' choreography is interesting within it's structured limits but there was never a moment that totally swept me away and of the three principals - Aaron Sillis as Leo, Clemmie Sveaas as the Princess and Ivan Putrov as Karl - it was Putrov who was the star of the show with dazzling pirouettes and leaps as well as de Frutos' robotic moves.

The main problem with the show is that it was split between three acts and the second act - the demonstration of the clock's power and Karl's smashing thereof - was little more than a colour & light show - what dancing there was put me in mind of a specialist dance number you might get in the middle of a panto such as "The Spirit of The Ring". The show would have worked better if it was split between just two acts.

It is due to return next year and maybe it will be worth a re-visit to see if they have sorted out the shape of the show. The King's competition was presented as a BRITAIN'S GOT TALENT-style show with a Davina McCall-style presenter that got old very quickly.

It was well received at the curtain however and it was great to give Neil a cheer as he gave us all a smile and a wave!

I have seen quite a few live acts recently but haven't felt sufficiently moved to blog - but as my poor noggin can only hold *so* much information here goes...

First up was Beverley Knight at the Royal Albert Hall.
What?? I saw Bev for the 11th time and didn't blog immediately? The trouble was I had kinda forgotten the show by the time I got home.

I am usually bouncing with joy after seeing her but this time I felt becalmed. I suspect my malaise might have been down to several things - we were in a box stage-left and while this gave an ok view of the stage, we were in the second row within it - and in the front row? Some Italian gayer with his equally Italian fag-hag. Now I was okay with them standing up to dance - but their incessant yakking during the numbers - uptempo or ballad - got on my TITS. I actually shouted at them at one point to shut the fuck up. Owen was a bit more restrained and had a quiet word with them - I'm amazed he could get a word in edgewise.

After that they both buggered off to the bar - only to come back for the encores to stand at the back of the box taking photos each other. Now I despair that whenever I go to a gig I appear to have some mong-magnet that attracts twats who NEED to yap through every song but these two were truly something else. I can only wish them a slow painful death.

So apart from them pulling my focus, I also had to contend with a show which sadly delivered no surprises. She played the tracks I wanted to hear and she was in excellent form - but the show held no surprises at all. I think also there was a feeling of having waited nigh-on 6 months from booking the show to the actual event there was some fall-off in expectation.

The last time I saw Bev was at the ICA at the launch of "100%" and while there is the kudos of being able to fill the Royal Albert Hall, she works better in a smaller venue.

I remember having a similar feeling about a Beverley show in 2006 - I think she needs to maybe get some new arrangements, a new band, something...

The next show was the incomparable Boy George in his Up Close And Personal show at the Leicester Square Theatre (the old Venue Theatre where his show TABOO had it's successful run).

Again there wasn't too much difference in the set than when we saw him there just after Christmas - a couple of new songs including "Grand Scheme of Things" and the truly infectious Lovers Rock of "Ken".

Da Boy has a new album out later this year - it would be great to have some of the countless unrecorded songs he has been singing in gigs in the past few years on cd.

He sounded in great voice and sprung a surprise at the start of the second half when he dedicated "Blue Moon" to the Pet Shop Boys - who were in the audience. I nearly swooned.

I think this was the eighth time I have seen George in concert - and I can't wait for the next one.

Last week we saw another star who first really came to prominence in those mad 1980s - August Darnell aka Kid Creole accompanied of course by his Coconuts!
This was my third gig by the Kid and as always he gave 110% - working his band, the Coconuts and the audience while remaining unflappably cool.

Sadly we saw him from the front row of the circle of the stubbornly un-atmospheric Barbican Concert Hall so although the stalls were up and dancing I was too aware of my surroundings to surrender to the music.
Um... also I was BUSTING for a wee and kept thinking "Ah this is the last one.... no? well this must be the the set-closer..... ok, THIS is the last one then..." But I had forgotten about the Kid's propensity for the extended jams on his songs so being stuck in the middle of a row with what felt to be a small pachyderm sitting on my bladder was No Fun.

After an EXTENDED encore of "If You Wanna Be Happy" - which isn't even his bloody song! - and the obligatory invitation to a "Lifeboat Party" I happily started bundling my way along the row - only for the shagger to come out again! Well tough... thanks for the show Kid but a man's gotta wee what a man's gotta wee.

So that brings us to the final show. Last Saturday we went to the chintzy Bush Hall to see Amanda Palmer and regular support Jason Webley presenting their new discovery... the co-joined twins from Walla Walla, Washington Evelyn Evelyn.As you will have heard on their debut album, life has not been easy for the twins - oddly every person or animal that crosses their path ends up dead or mad - or both!

As befits this - and the lengthy abuse they have suffered at the hands of the people who have adopted them along the way - they are a bit shy in public so, when introduced, they edged on quietly and sat behind Amanda's keyboard, clutching a large Kelly handbag and using their free hands to demurely clap us.
Owwwwwwww I can't keep this up - it was great to watch Amanda and Jason as Evelyn Evelyn! They must have rehearsed for ages to do it, co-ordinating playing an accordion then a guitar as well as all the shtick of fishing things out of their handbag - hankie to wipe the germs off the microphones and off each other. To say nothing of when they did an impromptu Q&A and improvised their answers - each saying a word at a time!

The second half consisted of Jason and Amanda doing short sets before a rampaging encore of Jason's Drinking Song which had us all spinning around 10 times looking at our aloft fingers to give us the suitable experience of being drunk! They are daft buggers them.
Amanda didn't hang around afterwards as she was visibly suffering from a cold on stage but Jason was out front signing and having his picture taken with the fans.

So there you go... four gigs, some enjoyed more than others.

And the music don't stop... am seeing the titans of pop Alphabeat tonight!

As you can see by the little widget on the right I am on the music network site Last.fm, and good fun it is too. I was poking about on there this afternoon and found a few good music questionnaires so here's one I am nicking off Janell from America:

"Post your top fifteen bands/artists, the first song you heard of theirs, a song you love, and your current favourite" 

1) Kirsty MacColl
First: They Don’t Know
Love: Soho Square
Currently: Caroline

2) Madonna
First: Material Girl
Love: Holiday
Currently: Give It To Me

3) Mary J. Blige
First: Real Love
Love: Baggage
Currently: Just Fine

4) Gladys Knight & the Pips
First: Midnight Train To Georgia
Love: No One Could Love You More
Currently: Bourgie Bourgie

5) Sugababes
First: Overload
Love: About You Now
Currently: Surprise

6) Prince
First: I Wanna Be Your Lover
Love: I Would Die 4 U
Currently: Chelsea Rogers

7) Lulu
First: Shout
Love: Only One
Currently: Dream Lover

8) Diana Ross & The Supremes
First: Baby Love
Love: Come See About Me
Currently: Falling In Love With Love

9) Aretha Franklin
First: I Say A Little Prayer
Love: Your Song
Currently: A Rose Is Still A Rose

10) Barbara Cook
First: The Ingenue
Love: Errol Flynn
Currently: Losing My Mind

11) Pet Shop Boys
First: West End Girls
Love: Being Boring
Currently: My Girl

12) Morrissey
First: This Charming Man
Love: The More You Ignore Me The Closer I Get
Currently: Hairdresser On Fire

13) Dusty Springfield
First: I Only Want To Be With You
Love: People Get Ready
Currently: Every Day I Have To Cry

14) Clydie King
First: The Thrill Is Gone
Love: Missin’ My Baby
Currently: Ready Willing & Able

15) Darts
First: Daddy Cool/The Girl Can’t Help It
Love: Get It
Currently: I Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love

Name That iPod Star!

There you go, Constant Reader... the 30 artists heard on my iPod to and from work today - via Tate Modern where Owen and I attended an excellent talk by Hayden Herrera, the biographer of Frida Kahlo. See how many you can spot?