, ketamine and contemporary showtunes:
Pet Shop Boys write a musical.

By saving theatre you simultaneously save pop music," says Neil Tennant, discussing his plans for Closer To Heaven, the musical he's conceived with fellow Pet Shop Boy Chris Lowe and Jonathan Harvey (writer of play film Beautiful Thing and BBC2 sitcom Gimme, Gimme, Gimme). "The theatre needs people who are 19 years old, can sing and dance and be really charismatic," Tennant

Continued. So could those people not join pop groups like Hear 'Say. Please.' Called Closer To Heaven, the production is essentially a sex'n'drugs-peppered romance that centres on characters who frequent a fictional nightclub. Hence the inclusion of a predatory pop manager called Bob Saunders and a ketamine taking sequence. "We wanted to do something with contemporary drama and contemporary music," says Tennant of the project, which is being staged by Andrew Lloyd Webber's Really Useful Theatre Company. The musical has been gestating since the early '90s, ever since the BBC drama department suggested the band work with Harvey. After years attempting to synchronise diaries while working on other projects, the trio opted to work in the theatre rather than

Television and reconvened in 1996, just after Pet Shop Boys had finished their Bilingual album. "Part of the idea is to see if we can change the kind of audience that goes to the theatre," says Tennant. "People go to live concerts all the time but they don't go to the theatre. They're not in the habit of going. They think it's high culture. But school kids always seem to have a great time when they go." In fact, Tennant and Lowe had a "fantastic" time too; so much so they already have tentative plans for another theatre project. But it's unlikely to appear before the next Pet Shop boys album which, according to Chris Lowe will be." more rock".

· Close To Heaven opens at the Arts Theatre Lands an 75 May.

This interview was published in Q Magazenne 2001issue