Life in pop

[bookshopboy]

How can they blame Jonathan anyway? He may have written the script, but the plot concepts must have been decided upon with major PSB involvment. If there were blaming Jonathan's script then they'd also be indirectly blaming their own poor song-writing skills and their inability to come up with an interesting enough plot. (I don't really mean to make C2H sound crap, because I went and saw it 7 times and actually enjoyed it).

I'm sure I read/heard an interview in which Neil thought the musical was not marketed correctly. He disliked the heart-logo that was used on the posters.

[Flaffer]

it's mentioned in Catalogue as well. some comment about how they put too much control in the hands of the Really Useful Group

[jasonjohn]

thanks for clearing that up bookshopboy

[Panbaams]

Here's the whole article (most relevant bits in red) ...

Return to musical heaven

Playwright Jonathan Harvey tells Dominic Cavendish why he's back on song after a painful experience with the Pet Shop Boys

After working on the panned Pet Shop Boys musical Closer to Heaven, Jonathan Harvey "swore blind" that he'd "never again do anything where people stopped talking and began singing". No musicals, no plays with music, nothing. "It was," he says, not mincing his words, "the worst experience of my career."

So what is Britain's most prolific gay playwright doing, three years on, bringing a monologue to the Edinburgh Fringe about a hard-drinking, drug-taking 30-year-old woman with an unshakeable habit of breaking into song?

Given that Harvey, now 36, was seduced at any early age by the glamour of musicals and followed up his 1993 breakthrough Beautiful Thing with the riotous Boom Bang-a-Bang, set on a Eurovision Song Contest night, Closer to Heaven must have been hell indeed to have provoked such an extreme vow of renunciation.

By the same token, it must have taken something exceptional to have brought about a change of heart.

Someone exceptional, explains Harvey: Abi Roberts, a little known singer-songwriter. Roberts's music so inspired him that he urged her to showcase her talents theatrically before deciding he didn't want any other writer to get the job.

"She's like a young British Bette Midler or Barbra Streisand," he says, describing her sound as "power-ballady" with a comic twist. He quotes a few lines from the opening number: "If Helena Bonham Carter's arse/Were six foot wide and made of glass/Would it still be a thing of beauty?/I think not..." It makes him giggle, he admits.

With just one actor to deal with and the estimable ex-EastEnders star Susan Tully making her directorial debut in the theatre ("She saw it as a real opportunity, which makes all the difference") Taking Charlie has been altogether more manageable than the Pet Shop Boys venture.

So what happened there, exactly? Mustering some tact, Harvey insists that his gripes have nothing to do with the "Boys" themselves but with the grinding production process. "It dragged on and on. I remember sending one e-mail to a producer, and only getting a reply back eight weeks later. It was like that. It got to the stage where I refused to do any more rewrites, it was too soul-destroying."

Though unsurprised that the reviews were harsh, he found the critical venom directed at his book "incredibly bruising".

"I had a meeting at ITV the day the reviews came out, and when I announced myself at reception I said my name really quietly because I was so ashamed."

The turning point came when he got home that night. "I was making the tea and I had Radio 4 on, and one of the reviewers said, 'Harvey writes dialogue like a German foreign-languages student', and I just burst out laughing, it was such rubbish."

Harvey has had more than his share of knocks over the years. Despite Beautiful Thing's triumphant progress from the fringe to the West End, its author stood accused of being far too upbeat in his portrayal of forbidden gay teenage love on a Thamesmead housing estate.

Since then, even when he has darkened the tone, critics have still come down on him for being too lightweight, too populist, too entertaining. His plays are often likened to sitcoms or soaps, but, even when he's turned his hand to these televisual staples, the complaints have continued.

His one, highly successful sitcom to date, Gimme Gimme Gimme, was accused of being too trashy by half, while controversy has followed him to Coronation Street, which he joined as a scriptwriter last year. The soap's first gay-kiss scene, which he helped write, provoked disgust in some quarters. "Ulrika Jonsson said she didn't want to watch two men kissing before 9 o'clock. There's still a lot of homophobia around, still a lot to get angry about."

Even though he has a penchant for strong, gabby female characters - Taking Charlie is his third monologue for women - he usually comes in for stick here, too.

"I remember standing in a pub after one of my shows and hearing someone say, 'Jonathan Harvey doesn't write real women. They're all grotesque', and I was really annoyed about that."

Not that he didn't swiftly recover and rally himself. "I've reached the conclusion," he says, blithely, "that I'm a bit of an acquired taste."

'Taking Charlie' is at the Assembly Rooms (0131 226 2428) until Aug 30.

It was in development a while, wasn't it? Neil and Chris did "Friendly fire" at the Savoy shows back in 1997 ...

[b@man]

does someone has already a copy of A life in pop?
My question is following:

I read on amazon.de that the running time of the dvd is 163min. When you play the Numb Maxi Single their is a menu where they advertise the DVD. It is mentioned that the documentary is 90 minutes long. So there are 73 minutes left. Then you have 5 music videos and three television appearances. If you calculate 5 min for each clip then you have 40 min. That means that there are 33 minutes left. Am i right that the documentary is then 2h20m long + the 8 music clips like the official site said. Or did they mean that the whole DVD is 2h20m long. I am a bit confused.

[Docoboy]

Thanks for posting the article, very interesting. I wonder if Neil and Chris found the long development process similarly frustrating.

[alig]

did they ever blame somebody else for the failure of their movie?
i remember neil saying that 9/11 ook away all the audience from CTH.

[Lleonard Pler]

Does it feature any subtitles? Thanks!

[grahamsf]

Does anyone know of a US release date for either "A Life In Pop" or "Catalogue"?
Cheers

[psb-freak]

In this doco, Neil says the homo-erotic elements in the Domino Dancing filmclip were unintentional.

Do you think that's true? The boys relection in Chis' sunglasses (at night) at the end of the clip does seem a bit suggestive!

Is Chris gay ???