Steve: They are one of the most successful musical duos of all time, and they are currently appearing live at the Savoy Theatre in London. It's Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe of course. Our old friends the Pet Shop Boys are here. Good morning guys.

Both: Good Morning.

Steve: He doesn't say very much, old Chris there, does he?

Neil: He might say more than you think!

Steve: Do you think so?

Neil: If you can get it out of him.

Steve: Goad him a bit, maybe?

Neil: Ask him all the questions!

Chris: You're going about it the wrong way!

Steve: Say "Good morning".

Both: Good morning!

Steve: Now you've done a week already at the Savoy, and you've got one more to go. How's it been going?

Neil: It's good. It's the first time we've ever done anything like this, where we turn up at the same time every day. I was a bit worried that my voice wouldn't hold up 'cos you know singing for one and a half hours six nights a week...

Chris: There wasn't much to hold up!

Neil: Well there you go! Anyway what there is has actually held up quite well!

Chris: Ooh missus!

Neil: Yes!

Steve: Now this just isn't a series of gigs, it's more of a show isn't it really?

Neil: It's actually a collaboration with an artist called Sam Taylor-Wood who works in video and photography, and she's made two video films which show on either side of the stage of a party going on, and we're in the video at the start and then we walk off the video wearing the same clothes into the show, and then at various moments we go back into the party. And that kind of paces the show 'cos they just start off sitting down and by the end they're all really drunk and dancing and hopefully the audience is as well... dancing anyway!

Steve: When you invented the Pet Shop Boys, when the Pet Shop Boys first came onto the scene, which I'm guessing would be what 80's - '84 - '85?

Neil: '85 yes

Steve: ...was it a deliberate ploy to be these two ironic characters that you seem to have become?

Neil: We have done some songs which are ironic like we had that one in the 80s lets make lots of money which was obviously kind of funny ironic kind of thing - but I think we've done tons of songs which are... I mean West End Girls isn't ironic for instance, or being boring isn't particularly ironic. I just think that the way we've presented ourselves which is very straight faced, 'cos really we weren't natural performers and so we came over in such a way that people though well (laughs) they must be being ironic 'cos they couldn't be like that naturally. In fact it was just the way we naturally are.

Steve: Really, so you didn't work out, like, he's the flamboyant one and this one won't say very much!

Neil: I was never gonna be the singer but...

Chris: I didn't know you were flamboyant Neil?

Neil: (laughs) I don't think I am flamboyant.

Steve: I don't know what that means!

Neil: Yes!

Steve: Now you know since you started as you said in like in 1985 you've really become global stars. When you first went into it did you realise it would be on this kind of scale. Chris? Chris gets a question!

Chris: I can't answer that - I've got no idea! No. I didn't expect anything!

Steve: But I'm glad that we've had this talk! So when you went into it what did you imagine it to be like then? I mean what were your goals when you started the Pet Shop Boys?

Chris: All we wanted to do was like have a disco record out on a New York indie label sort of thing...

Steve: Yes.

Chris: ...and we achieved that. That was it for me really, that was all I wanted.

Neil: And look what happened.

Chris: And look what's happened.

Neil: Look what I've got you into.

Steve: Have you got more money than you could possibly count?

Chris: No, I haven't got enough! Sorry, I mean sorry everyone, I don't really mean that! What I mean is I haven't got as much as you would think.

Steve: Yes.

Chris: That's different!

Steve: And do you both lead pop star lives would you say?

Chris: Well Neil is a number three Ligger in London!

Neil: I am - it's in the Sun!

Chris: Neil very much lives a pop star life!

Steve: Yes - who's number... I saw that the other day... number one is now - umm...

Neil: Mark Lamar.

Steve: Oh, Mark Lamar - yes.

Neil: I'm the number three Ligger for attending three parties. One of which was Ant and Dec, I didn't get a drink. The whole point of this is how many free drinks you get. The other one is the Labour Party party where you have to buy the drinks, and the third one is a party where the drinks were free - 'cos I was paying for them all! It was a friends birthday party! But then I got my press office onto it, and just say how you counted it. I was quite flattered when I first saw it - and then when it said these three parties I said I didn't get any free drinks there. I'm number three now!

Chris: So Neil don't go out anymore.

Neil: Well I haven't been able to 'cos of the show anyway.

Steve: The Pet Shop Boys are here... we'll be right back!

Break for music - excerpts of PSB tracks.

Steve: We're back here with the Pet Shop Boys.

Neil: That was quick!

Steve: That was quick, and all those lovely hits. And Lisa Tarbuck is here. Lets have a question from Lisa.

Lisa: Why have you picked the Savoy to entertain us in this time?

Neil: Harvy Goldsmith, who's the promoter, suggested doing a theatre - 'cos we actually wanted to do a one-off gig but it wasn't possible - and he said you've always wanted to appear in the West End, why don't we see if we can get a theatre, and the Savoy Theatre quite simply was empty!

Lisa: Oh really!

Steve: Would you, both of you, ever consider giving up the work, and writing and producing for other artists as you've done before?

Neil: Yes probably at some point.

Chris: Yes probably.

Neil: I Wouldn't mind doing that actually.

Chris: Yes it'd be a lot easier sending them on the road.

Steve: Get Dusty Springfield or somebody out there.

Neil: You can't get Dusty touring - we've tried that before!

Steve: What's your favourite song that you've ever recorded?

Neil: Being Boring.

Steve: Really?

Neil: Yes.

Steve: Because it's again ironic, or because it's...

Neil: It's an autobiographical song really for me, in terms of the words about me and all my friends in Newcastle. We used to go to this youth theatre and we always wanted to do something kind of wild with our lives. And my closest friend for about a year died while we were recording this album and I really wrote this song about our lives and how we'd grown up and I'd become this pop star and he'd just died and what we'd set out to do when we were kids basically. So it means a lot to me and also I really like the music of it as well.

Steve: Yes. Here's Lisa Tarbuck for the Pet Shop Boys.

Lisa: I was gonna say about putting on a big show, do you think that people like Madonna give you some sort of - umm...

Steve: Inspiration?

Lisa: Exactly. Inspiring. And it's become now that if you do take something on the road you have to have this big show?

Neil: What we're doing is a reaction against that 'cos when we did our first show which was in '89 with Derek Jarman, which was a big show, that was when those shows were just starting in fact Madonna had possibly done one but people weren't doing them. And we did it differently from Madonna anyway. But now in the '90's they became quite common-place.

Steve: As a manufactured band, as a kind of connivance, what do you make of the Spice Girls?

Neil: I quite like the Spice Girls, some of the singles. I don't quite understand, if I was really honest, the huge phenomena that they are, but they're riding a wave it's just... I think they are in the right place at the right time, all these cliches but... I don't think it's down to the records...

Steve: Yeh - I think it's something to do with the relatability of, like, the characters in East Enders, people of that age group see themselves in the band.

Neil: It's a sort of a soap opera isn't it, in a way, in that you have all those characters. 'Cos the records themselves, I mean in the '80's Kylie for instance was always slagged off and Stock Atkin and Waterman if you remember at the time were always slagged off as these manufactured records.

Steve: She's one of those artists that has become a kind of a gay icon isn't she?

Neil: Yes. It's not that it's actually the fact that this is because Sam Taylor Wood has actually done a film with Kylie, where Kylie mimes to the recording of The Last Castrato.

(laughs)

Lisa: That'll be interesting!

Chris: Naked!

Neil: Art doesn't come any artier than that!

(laughs)

Steve: I'm not sure if Kylie's cool again, Kylie...

Neil: Kylie is... Kylie is perennially cool.

Steve: Is she perennially cool?

Neil: Yes.

Steve: Ok. Now what about Noel Coward, is he perennially cool?

Neil: I don't know that he's cool, I think the images of Noel Coward has kind of cast a show of a lot of pop music.

Steve: 'Cos you're doing an album of Noel Coward covers aren't you?

Neil: Yes, I'm just persuading people to do it really, it's for the Red Hot Aids Trust and the Noel Coward estate and the publishers and everything have agreed to give up all the royalties, and the album will come out next Easter. And we've got a lot of people who are going to do contemporary versions of Noel Coward songs. Actually I thought people wouldn't know there songs but in fact it's amazing how many people... Brian Ferry said he knows the song he wanted to do, and half of Blur are going to do it and they wanted to do "Don't let it beastly to the Germans", and I didn't think they'd have heard of these songs it's quite interesting that people like myself still hear these songs from their parents or their grandparents.

Steve: Yes.

Neil: And Noel Coward, you know, was the first British songwriter to be a global superstar, he was huge in America, he was huge in the Far East, he could perform in Paris in French on the French stage, before the Beatles really there was only Noel Coward.

Steve: Who else would you like to work with, that you haven't worked with already?

Neil: We've always said we'd like to work with Nina Simmone, because I think she's a wonderful singer, we both like her music a lot.

Steve: Mmm yes. Thanks very much. Let me just say the Pet Shop Boys are appearing currently at the Savoy Theatre in London, until Saturday 21st of June. Their new single, Somewhere, is released on June 23rd. Can we play that right now...? We're gonna play that now. Thank you very much guys...

All: Thanks a lot... Goodbye...

I would like to thank my partner, Paul Stenning, for typing this out.