Closer To Heaven Returns To Union Theatre

Closer To Heaven by Jonathan Harvey and The Pet Shop Boys at the Union Theatre, London

Following its sell-out run at the Union Theatre in April 2015, it has been announced that Closer To Heaven – The Pet Shop Boys musical will play a return season at the venue from 21 October to 28 November 2015. Set against the backdrop of Soho’s pulsing clubland, Closer to Heaven tells the story of Dave, just off the boat from Ireland and determined to make something of himself. He is offered a bar job at a glitzy London nightclub, where he quickly becomes part of an unconventional family including Billie Trix, a fading rock star of the sixties and mother figure to the club’s habitués – Vic, the club’s owner and a middle-aged gay father and his daughter Shell, who Dave sparks an immediate connection with. But will Dave truly discover himself in London, or will he fall into a labyrinth of excess, false agendas and the darker side … Read more

REVIEW: Closer To Heaven, Union Theatre ✭✭✭✭

Closer To Heaven by Jonathan Harvey and The Pet Shop Boys at the Union Theatre, London

What makes the musical stand-out is it unashamed gaiety, and I use that word in its modern sense. This is, as Nicholas De Jongh said when the piece premiered, “the first truly gay musical to be written and composed by Englishmen” to reach the West End. It is also essentially youthful, and quite uncompromising in dealing head on with the vagaries and traps of young adulthood: sex, drugs (use and sale), pop music, alcohol, predatory conduct, prostitution, love, survival, sexuality and, most compellingly, the family you create separate from the family into which you are born.