London's club-land. Suddenly what was wrong seems right…
Dave, young, sexy and fresh from Ireland, falls for beautiful,
ambitious Shell and streetwise drug dealer Mile End Lee. Billie Tricks,
seventies rock icon and now hostess of a glitzy London nightclub, is
there when they need to turn to "mother". Meanwhile the outrageous Bob
Saunders, pop manager extraordinaire, has his own plans for Dave. As fame
and fortune beckon, Dave quickly learns that things aren't always as
straightforward as they seem.
The eagerly awaited musical 'Closer To Heaven' (which Neil and Chris
worked on with Jonathan Harvey for a few years) opened on Tuesday 15th
May 2001, it ran for five months before closing on Saturday 13th October
2001.
Towards the end of 1999 The Really Useful Group, Andrew Lloyds Webber's
company, agreed to finance a workshop. A full cast, director,
choreographer and designer worked on the show and rehearsed it for
three weeks, culminating in three private performances in North London
at the end of May 2000 which went very well. "Actually it was
astonishingly accomplished", says Neil. "The idea of a workshop is to
see what worked and what didn't work. It was greeted with a lot of
enthusiasm". The musical which was originally going to be called
'Nightlife', is set against the backdrop of London's clubland.
It features 15 new tracks, including 'Friendly Fire' which the Boys
played at the London Savoy Theatre in 1997, and few tracks from
'Nightlife'.
Billie Trix: Frances Barber
Bob Saunders: Paul Broughton
Vic Christian: David Burt
Straight Dave: Paul Keating
Flynn: David Langham
Shell Christian: Stacey Roca
Mile End Lee: Tom Walker
Billie's Babes: Jo Cavanagh, Akiya Henry, C. Jay Ranger, Mark John Richardson,
Richard Joe, Louie Spence, Mark Stanway
Ensemble/Swing: Amanda Valentine, Marcos White
Music and lyrics: Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe
Script: Jonathan Harvey
Producer: Andrew Lloyd Webber
Designer: Es Devlin
Sound Designer: Simon Baker
Lighting designer: Mark Henderson
Musical Supervisor: Chris Nightingale
Choreographer: Peter Darling
Director: Gemma Bodinetz
A Company on Stage Production: Creative & Executive Producer Kevin Wallace in association with Terry Brady, Broadcast Musical Management GmbH MAT Theatrical Entertainment S.A .de C.V.
Several songs had been written for the musical but were not used. These include
'The Only One' and 'For Your Own Good' from the 'Nightlife' album and also the
unreleased songs, 'Tall Thin Men', 'A Little Black Dress', 'Home' and 'You've Got
To Start Somewhere'. The three versions of 'Closer To Heaven' in the show each have
different lyrics. On Monday 8th October 2001 the Original Cast Recording was released.
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