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Pet Shop Boys review – still never being boring


Royal Opera House, LondonNeil Tennant and Chris Lowe deliver hits and new songs with their trademark bittersweet ambivalence, theatrical staging and imperviousness to fashion

The staging is suitably theatrical, with twin lamp-posts bookending Tennant and keyboard player Chris Lowe at the start and end of the set, suggesting solitude, seediness and clean design lines all at the same time. Photograph: Andy Hall/the ObserverThe devil’s advocate position might be that the Pet Shops Boys’ canon can get a bit airless as a result, but the duo’s adherence to a set of barely fluctuating musical principles has served them nothing but well. They still play Paninaro, a curveball paean to passion and an Italian luxe streetwear look (upmarket bomber jackets, white jeans, Timberland boots), voiced by the band’s otherwise silent partner Lowe.

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