Closer to Heaven is a musical by Jonathan Harvey and Pet Shop Boys. It was premiered in May 2001 at the Arts Theatre in London, opening to mixed reviews, and ran until 13 October 2001. A second production of Closer to Heaven was premiered in Australia in 2005. New off-West End productions premiered in London in 2015 and 2019.

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Quick Facts Closer to Heaven, Music ...

Closer to Heaven
Music	Pet Shop Boys
Lyrics	Pet Shop Boys
Book	Jonathan Harvey
Productions	2001 West End 2005 Australia 2009 Brighton 2010 Dallas, TX 2015 London 2019 London 2024 London

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A spin-off cabaret show, entitled Musik: The Billie Trix Story, opened in Edinburgh in 2019.

The story is narrated by retired rock icon and actress Billie Trix (Frances Barber), who otherwise has a fairly small part in the story. The opening number, "My Night", is sung by Billie and the rest of the cast, and is used to introduce the characters.

Shell Christian (Stacey Roca), is going to see her estranged father, Vic Christian (David Burt), for the first time in years. Vic, who is gay, left Shell and her mother during her childhood, and now runs a successful gay club in London. Meanwhile, Straight Dave (Paul Keating), who has just arrived from Ireland, is working as a bartender at Vic's club, although his ambition is to be a dancer at the club. After seeing and speaking to her father, Shell meets Dave, and they immediately fall in love.

Record producer Bob Saunders (Paul Broughton) is a friend of Billie Trix and a regular at Vic's club. He sees Dave dancing and decides he wants to sign him for a boy band he is forming. He makes an offer to Dave, who has no interest in signing; however, Saunders continues to pressure Dave into working for him.

Dave meets and falls in love with drug dealer Mile End Lee (Tom Walker), who deals at Vic's club. Shell is devastated when she discovers that Dave is gay, although part of her has suspected it all along. Meanwhile, Vic discovers Lee dealing drugs in his club and confiscates the drugs. Lee is worried he will be killed for losing the drugs.

At this point, everyone gets high on ketamine – Shell is still upset about Dave; Lee is worried about being killed; Dave is frustrated that Lee has withdrawn from him; and Billie, a habitual user, needs no excuse. Lee has a drug overdose and dies. At Lee's funeral, Dave sings a song, For All of Us.

A few months later, Dave is apparently back on the road to success and sings Positive role model to end the show on a high (the 2015 and 2019 productions replaced Positive Role Model by Vocal as the closing song).

Most of the songs that appeared in Closer to Heaven were specifically written for the musical because Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe did not want to produce a "jukebox musical" in the vein of Mamma Mia! or We Will Rock You. Several of the musical's songs were pre-released on the Pet Shop Boys' 1999 album Nightlife, including Closer to Heaven, In Denial, and Vampires. Nightlife was recorded whilst they were writing Closer to Heaven and originally more of the album's tracks appeared in the musical. The oldest song is Shameless, which originally appeared as the B-side to "Go West" in 1993.

• Billie Trix – Frances Barber (until 15 September); Amanda Harris (16 September to 13 October)
• Straight Dave – Paul Keating
• Shell Christian – Stacey Roca
• Mile End Lee – Tom Walker
• Vic Christian – David Burt
• Bob Saunders – Paul Broughton
• Flynn – David Langham
• Billie's Babes – Marcos White, Jo Cavanagh, Akiya Henry, C. Jay Ranger, Mark John Richardson, Richard Roe, Louie Spence, Mark Stanway, Amanda Valentine
• Understudy Vic/Bob Saunders/Flynn - Andrew Whelan

The original run of Closer to Heaven was from May 2001 to September 2001. This was extended to January 2002 because early performances were played to packed audiences. However, over the summer, audiences dwindled. In recent interviews, Neil Tennant has blamed this on poor marketing and bad press reviews. After the 11 September 2001 attacks, the Arts Theatre was worried about the continual fall of audience numbers across London and wanted a big audience puller, so Closer to Heaven closed on 13 October 2001. It was replaced with The Vagina Monologues.

When Closer to Heaven opened in London, the Pet Shop Boys said that there was interest from production companies all over the world, including New York and Germany.

On 8 May 2006, Frances Barber joined Pet Shop Boys to perform "Friendly fire" at a concert for BBC Radio 2. This was recorded and later released as the Pet Shop Boys' live album Concrete.

In April 2019 it was announced that a spin-off cabaret show entitled Musik, written by Jonathan Harvey with four brand new songs written and produced by Pet Shop Boys, would premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2019.^[8] This new one-woman show produced by Cahoots Theatre Company explores the backstory of Billie Trix and stars Frances Barber who originated the role in the original London run of Closer to Heaven.

On 6 August 2019, an EP of the six songs from Musik was released to streaming services.^[9]

A London run of Musik ran from 5th February to 1st March 2020 at Leicester Square Theatre.^[10][11]

Stuart King, writing for London Box Office (12 February 2020) noted:

For an actress of 62, Ms Barber offers an energised masterclass worthy of a gal considerably junior in years. In a figure-hugging black bustier - and occasionally straddling a cocktail bar stool - she recounts Billie’s escapades through a non-stop, delusional, coke-fuelled, whiskey-swigging, garrulous ramble, in which she shares her life spent crisis-crossing the globe encountering everyone from Mick Jagger and Andy Warhol to the Dalai Llama and Jean-Paul Sartre. Her strutting, swaggering, ranting and dead-pan asides are only parked when she takes a turn at the microphone to sing the six songs provided by the Pet Shop Boys (who as co-writers, were sat a few rows in front of this reviewer on Press Night, and were clearly enjoying every moment).^[12]