{"id":377320,"date":"2026-04-06T04:42:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T04:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/377320\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T04:42:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T04:42:07","slug":"barbara-windsor-smacked-our-bottoms-pet-shop-boys-on-showstopping-visuals-horrified-bosses-and-snubbing-the-queen-pet-shop-boys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/377320\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Barbara Windsor smacked our bottoms!\u2019 Pet Shop Boys on showstopping visuals, horrified bosses \u2013 and snubbing the queen | Pet Shop Boys"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 1988, when he was 20, Wolfgang Tillmans<\/a> tore an A0 poster off a building site hoarding and nailed it to a wall in his flat in Hamburg. It was advertising Pet Shop Boys\u2019 new album, Introspective, and consisted of thick vertical bars in different colours. \u201cIt was just so cool in the context of the time,\u201d the artist says today, admiring how the pop group had gone \u201cone level more abstract\u201d.<\/p>\n

Around the same time in Doncaster, teenager Alasdair McLellan \u2013 now an A-list fashion photographer \u2013 was impressed by the clothes of Pet Shop Boys\u2019 keyboard-player Chris Lowe; for instance the cap, stripy T-shirt and Issey Miyake glasses on the cover of their single Suburbia. \u201cI always thought he was the best-dressed man of the 80s,\u201d McLellan says. \u201cObviously, he just stood there playing the keyboard and I always noticed what he was wearing, especially all that sportswear stuff. He just seemed to do it better than everyone else.\u201d McLellan couldn\u2019t get style magazines in his village, so his visual education came from pop and the music press. \u201cI got into photography through album covers, Smash Hits and NME.\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markWe had in our contract: total artistic control. We could do what we liked<\/p>\n

Both men ended up photographing and making videos for Pet Shop Boys: Tillmans made a video for Home and Dry in 2002; McLellan directed one for Loneliness 22 years later. Their work, and the early visuals that inspired them, is collected in a new 600-page book called Pet Shop Boys: Volume. Billed as a \u201ccomplete visual record\u201d and spanning more than 40 years, it gathers together the record sleeves, music videos and concert imagery that have been as integral to Pet Shop Boys\u2019 appeal as their music.<\/p>\n

\u2018Oh God, they don\u2019t do anything\u2019 \u2026 on the set of the What Have I Done to Deserve This? video. Photograph: Cindy Palmano\/\u00a9 2006 and 2026 Pet Shop Boys<\/p>\n

Lowe and singer Neil Tennant are chatting about their bright orange doorstopper at a table in the corner of the London restaurant Toklas. Coincidentally, we are sitting beneath a Tillmans photograph of fruit and vegetables arranged by a swimming pool. \u201cWe\u2019ve always had joy in packaging and thought it was part of the creative statement,\u201d Tennant says, ordering a carafe of white wine. \u201cI won\u2019t say Gesamtkunstwerk, but \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGo on, Neil, say it,\u201d says Lowe mischievously. \u201cI know you like saying it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gesamtkunstwerk is the term Wagner popularised, meaning \u201ctotal work of art\u201d, where sounds and visuals come together in an overwhelming whole \u2013 and Pet Shop Boys were ideally placed to elevate pop in such a way. When they started making records in the mid-80s, the music business was flush with cash thanks to the introduction of the CD, which inspired many fans to buy their favourite records again, on this hi-fidelity new format. \u201cRecord companies were making money hand over fist and they had budgets to throw around,\u201d remembers Mark Farrow, whose company has designed the vast majority of Pet Shop Boys\u2019 visual output. \u201cIt was great!\u201d<\/p>\n

Back then, the group\u2019s singles came in several physical formats: a CD single, cassette single, 7in vinyl and often two 12in singles. \u201cMark used to love it because you could do variations on a theme,\u201d Tennant says. Take the sleeve for the 12in remix of It\u2019s a Sin, which features a closeup of the keys and chains worn by Lowe, playing the jailer taking Tennant to be burned at the stake in the track\u2019s Derek Jarman-directed video. The 12in remix of 1989\u2019s It\u2019s Alright, meanwhile, is fluoro pink on one side and green on the other. \u201cMinimalism in colour,\u201d Farrow says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like fluoro,\u201d Lowe says. \u201ci-D magazine in the 80s was always fluoro. And that was an era I really liked \u2013 all that street fashion.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve still got issue two, when it was like a fanzine,\u201d says Tennant. A former assistant editor of Smash Hits before he was a pop star, he launches into a theory that the magazines whose circulations have risen amid the general decline of print are the ones with staples rather than spines: \u201cThe New Yorker. The Spectator. The Atlantic. The stapled magazine opens invitingly, whereas the instinct of a perfect bound magazine is to close.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing to do with the content, then?\u201d asks Lowe.<\/p>\n

Too much for EMI America \u2026 Bruce Weber\u2019s (uncensored) video for Being Boring.<\/p>\n

Pet Shop Boys met Farrow at the outset of their career when they were managed by Tom Watkins. \u201cHe arrived in the office from Manchester,\u201d says Tennant, who is from Newcastle, while Lowe is from Blackpool. \u201cWe were northerners. The rest of the office was full of southern gays, basically. We immediately got on with him.\u201d Farrow\u2019s first sleeve was a remix of West End Girls, their first No 1. His second, Love Comes Quickly, had no type on the front, just a closeup picture of Lowe in a Boy-branded cap. It sounds dangerously uncommercial, but Pet Shop Boys have always held a trump card. \u201cWe had in our contract: total artistic control,\u201d Lowe says. \u201cSo we could do whatever we wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

The original concept for their debut album, Please, had been designed by Watkins. Tennant recalls it as \u201ca piece of paper engineering which was 64 separate flaps of paper. It was ridiculous \u2013 it took me half an hour to get the record out.\u201d Farrow designed a cover that took the opposite approach \u2013 largely white space, with miniature typography and a tiny picture of Tennant and Lowe\u2019s faces in the middle. \u201cIt looked outrageous in 1986,\u201d Tennant says, the pair agreeing that many record sleeves back then were either brash or just poorly designed. \u201cEven Tom had to admit it was really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

It also chimed with their minimalist attitude to performance. Despite their soaring tunes of a banging nature, Pet Shop Boys would barely move when they played one of their hits on Top of the Pops. \u201cI think Tom said something like, \u2018Oh God, they don\u2019t do anything,\u2019\u201d says Lowe, who has been reading his late manager\u2019s autobiography, Let\u2019s Make Lots of Money, named after the subtitle of their song Opportunities.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was general panic,\u201d Tennant agrees. \u201cBut we had no performance experience, and we were trying not to look showbiz. We didn\u2019t bend to other people\u2019s way of doing things. For our first TV performance of West End Girls in Germany, they put about 300 teddy bears around us and two dancers pretending to be prostitutes. So, as it was too late to do anything about it, we simply ignored them.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018The record company said this was not a video\u2019 \u2026 Wolfgang Tillmans\u2019 video for Home and Dry consisted almost entirely of grainy footage of mice.<\/p>\n

It was an ethos they maintained. In 1987, performing Rent at the Royal Variety Performance, Lowe wearing a dramatic inflatable Issey Miyake jacket, they caused a stir by refusing to wave at the queen and Prince Philip at the end. \u201cIt had a revolving stage,\u201d Tennant says. \u201cYou stand there at the end, it goes round and you wave. Now, we don\u2019t wave. It looks lame. So we just didn\u2019t turn up for the finale. Live television is easy. They can\u2019t do anything. Our mothers were both furious. It was the first time our parents met, actually, backstage, and they were united in fury.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carry On star Barbara Windsor, who appeared in their musical film It Couldn\u2019t Happen Here, wasn\u2019t happy either. \u201cShe slapped our bottoms,\u201d Tennant says. \u201cShe said, \u2018You\u2019re very naughty, boys. You should have done the finale.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s one of those things I just can\u2019t do,\u201d Lowe says. \u201cYou know at the beginning of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? They\u2019re all doing that\u201d \u2013 he waves. \u201cIf I were on the director would be like, \u2018Cut! Cut!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, you see,\u201d says Tennant, \u201cnow the director would like it if you didn\u2019t wave, because he would say, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s so Pet Shop Boys.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

As well as their refusal to be ingratiating, Pet Shop Boys also didn\u2019t sell sex \u2013 or not overtly. \u201cYou don\u2019t think we were very sexual?\u201d asks Lowe, pretending to be affronted. One exception came in 1994, when Tennant decided to come out in a cover feature for the British gay lifestyle magazine Attitude. Before that, Pet Shop Boys had resisted categorising their sexualities. \u201cI had this pleated Issey Miyake shirt,\u201d Tennant says. \u201cI decided to undo it in an inviting way, because I\u2019ve got a slightly hairy chest. And actually, the picture\u2019s great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Outrageous white space \u2026 Farrow\u2019s minimal design for debut album Please.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you get a lot of offers?\u201d Lowe enquires.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know if I did, actually,\u201d Tennant replies. \u201cWell, I was in a relationship. It was quite fun doing that. But we haven\u2019t done sexy that often.\u201d<\/p>\n

The video for their 1990 single Being Boring was another example: directed by the photographer Bruce Weber, it horrified the record company as it opened showing a naked man bouncing on a trampoline. \u201cWe were basically told off,\u201d Tennant says. \u201cI remember saying, \u2018The Chart Show [a pop video programme] only shows the middle bit, so they won\u2019t show the guy jumping naked at the beginning, and you won\u2019t see the couple screwing at the end. So what\u2019s the fucking problem? This is the era of Bruce Weber\u2019s Calvin Klein underpants adverts. It\u2019s mass culture. It\u2019s not some weird, sleazy thing we\u2019re doing.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

They were recently aghast to discover, about 35 years later, that the video had been censored. \u201cWe had a sample DVD of Smash, our singles compilation, and I loyally flicked through the whole thing,\u201d Tennant says. \u201cBeing Boring starts with Bruce Weber\u2019s lettering over a plain background. EMI America had edited out the naked guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

double quotation markI always remember Adam Ant\u2019s great line: \u2018Ridicule is nothing to be scared of\u2019<\/p>\n

Were they expressing what would now be called a queer sensibility? \u201cSomeone recently said we were queer trailblazers,\u201d Tennant says. \u201cWe want to do a T-shirt: queer trailblazer. We went through the late 80s totally undefined. That word sounds quite liberating, doesn\u2019t it? Now everything is defined completely. In fact it\u2019s disapproved of, not being defined.\u201d Ambiguity and complexity, he says, are key to Pet Shop Boys. \u201cThey are at the very core of the culture. Always.\u201d<\/p>\n

One reason their work has earned enduring respect is that, while always proudly pop, it hasn\u2019t been afraid to be awkward. In the 90s, they had periods of wearing odd costumes, such as the orange suits and dunces\u2019 hats they wore to promote their single Can You Forgive Her? \u201cOur manager was worried that we would be ridiculed,\u201d Tennant says. \u201cBut I always remember Adam Ant\u2019s great line, \u2018Ridicule is nothing to be scared of.\u2019 We wanted to side-step the pop-star thing. Also, that was a reaction to ageing and maybe feeling insecure. In 1993, I was about to be 40.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat young!\u201d Lowe says. He is 66, Tennant now 71.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, of course, being middle aged is much worse than being old,\u201d Tennant says.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Pet Shop Boys\u2019 most left-field moment is Tillmans\u2019 video for Home and Dry, which consists almost entirely of grainy footage of mice filmed at Tottenham Court Road tube station in London. \u201cAs much as I love their detached aesthetic, I wanted to bring a matter-of-factness to the mix,\u201d Tillmans says. \u201cIt is so good to work with them because they mean what they say. When I delivered it and the record company said, \u2018This is not a video,\u2019 they stood by it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seven inch \u2026 West End Girls from 1985. Photograph: Krause & Johansen\/\u00a9 2006 and 2026 Pet Shop Boys<\/p>\n

\u201cWas he expecting us to change it?\u201d Lowe asks. \u201c\u2018What the hell is this? Go away and make a proper video!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was cute,\u201d Tennant says. \u201cA more typical thing would have been to accept it and then make a conventional video, but I think we like the fact that we never do things the easy way. You\u2019ve always got to work at liking Pet Shop Boys because we do a lot of things to put you off.\u201d<\/p>\n

One thing that is reliably crowd-pleasing is their greatest hits tour, called Dreamworld. It started in May 2022, has played everywhere from festivals around the world to the Royal Opera House in London and so far shows no sign of ending; there are another 10 dates this summer. \u201cIt\u2019s going on for ever,\u201d says Lowe, laughing. \u201cGet used to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a bit like having a successful musical,\u201d Tennant says. \u201cSome people come and see Dreamworld who wouldn\u2019t go and see Pet Shop Boys normally: and so as it goes on we\u2019re often playing in bigger venues. It\u2019s great to have a more mass market thing where you haven\u2019t given an inch in the way it\u2019s presented. We come on wearing masks and we stand there, stock-still, and the audience just has to deal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Weapons-grade hits \u2026 the Dreamland tour. Photograph: \u00a9 2006 and 2026 Pet Shop Boys<\/p>\n

Its ultimate appeal, of course, is Pet Shop Boys\u2019 weapons-grade hits, but these will be absent in a series of five gigs they\u2019re putting on this week at the Electric Ballroom in London. Since they\u2019ll be playing only B-sides and album tracks, they\u2019re calling the shows Obscure. Intended for hardcore fans, they say it\u2019s partly to promote Volume. \u201cOne of the motivations behind it was we didn\u2019t have to do book signings,\u201d Tennant says. \u201cI find them too weird. They\u2019re a bit unnerving.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough we have signed a lot of books,\u201d says Lowe.<\/p>\n

They have rehearsed 35 songs in all, and will play 24 each night; the setlist (and intro music) will change. Lowe chose the songs, culled from a playlist he made of the ones he wanted to play live.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt lasted five and a half hours,\u201d Tennant says.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly four hours, 42 minutes,\u201d Lowe says, examining the playlist on his Spotify account. \u201cAnd Neil said, \u2018You can\u2019t do a concert that long.\u2019 So then we went through the list. Neil added a couple.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a special treat, I\u2019ve been allowed to add a couple,\u201d Tennant smiles. \u201cIf this show was played to a mass audience at the Uber Arena in Berlin, I think a lot of people would just spend the whole time in the bar. But I\u2019m hoping at the Electric Ballroom they\u2019re not going to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tennant is keen to make a final point before they leave. \u201cThere\u2019s a tendency to assume that everything with us is thought-out and plotted,\u201d he says. \u201cBut actually, the reality is it\u2019s much more improvised and instinctive.\u201d<\/p>\n

He gets the bill and they head out of the restaurant, by chance bumping into \u2013 and getting kissed by \u2013 someone else responsible for legendary record sleeves: Peter Saville, designer for New Order. \u201cDon\u2019t tell Mark Farrow,\u201d chuckles Lowe.<\/p>\n

Pet Shop Boys: Volume is published by Thames & Hudson on 7 April<\/a>. Obscure is at the Electric Ballroom, London, 6-10 April<\/a>. Dreamworld continues at Medimex festival, Taranto, Italy, on 20 June<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 1988, when he was 20, Wolfgang Tillmans tore an A0 poster off a building site hoarding and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[146,85,46],"class_list":{"0":"post-377320","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}