Pet Shop Boys review – still never being boring

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

“We could make five times more money playing the O2 arena for one night,” Pet Shop Boys’ singer Neil Tennant mused to an interviewer in April, on the decision to play five nights at London’s Royal Opera House. They eschewed the opportunity in favour of this intimate, refined space to stage Dreamworld – the duo’s ongoing greatest hits tour. It’s a set that covers much hallowed pop ground but finds space for deep cuts and the band’s latest output as well.

This is the third time Pet Shop Boys have played an Opera House residency; the venue suits them. Both institutions are long-lived bastions of aesthetic sophistication and mannered feeling in a rapidly changing world. When not making sleek pop that marries the frictionless glide of Kraftwerk and the controlled release of New Order with Tennant’s cool-eyed aperçus, the Boys score ballets and films. There is a grand gesturing to many of their synth chord progressions that chimes with the red velvet upholstery.