Doctor Who Vs. Pet Shop Boys

This post combines my two greatest creative influences: the

British institutions that are Doctor Who and Pet Shop Boys.

For the uninitiated, the Wikipedia entry for the Pet Shop Boys describes them as

"an English electronic dance music duo [formed in London in 1982, and originally called West End], consisting of Neil Tennant [b. 1954], who provides main 

vocals and Chris Lowe [b. 1959] on keyboards." 
One of the world's best-selling music artists, Pet Shop Boys have sold over 100 million records worldwide, and are listed as the most successful duo in UK music history. Three times Brit Award winners and six-times Grammy nominees, since 1985 they have achieved forty-two Top 30 singles and twenty-two Top 10 hits in the UK chart, including four number ones: West End Girls, It's a Sin, Always On My Mind, and Heart. At the 2009 Brit Awards, Pet Shop Boys received the Outstanding Contribution to Music.

This month, the duo released their first single for three years. Dreamland,

a duet with Olly Alexander (of Years & Years), is the intended title track of

their forthcoming album, to be released next January. PSB headlined the

recent Live in Hyde Park festival, and the band also announced a new 

worldwide arena tour for 2020 - Dreamworld will celebrate their greatest

 hits. These two icons of British culture are connected by these sixteen 

facts:

• in the late 1980's, a young Scottish drama student called David John McDonald adopted the stage name of David Tennant, after PSB front- man Neil Tennant
• their 1988 film, It Couldn't Happen Here, starred Gareth Hunt (Arak in Planet of the Spiders), Barbara Windsor (given a cameo in Army of Ghosts), extra Chris Chering (Tetrap in Time and the Rani, and Skin- head in Silver Nemesis), and Simon Archer (lighting cameraman) was later the cinematographer on The Lodger
• comic actors, David Walliams and Matt Lucas (both longtime Petheads and dedicated Whovians) appeared in the video for I'm With Stupid (2006)
• Frances Barber (who played Madame Kovarian in Series Six) starred in the PSB's 2001 stage musical, Closer to Heaven as Billie Trix, a role reprised for Musik (2019) - Concrete (2006) included her live version of Friendly Fire
• Tennant provided backing vocals on Robbie Williams' 1998 single, No Regrets with Neil Hannon, who later sang Love Don't Roam for The Runaway Bride, and performed Song For Ten on the first Doctor Who OST album (2006)
• former PSB manager Tom Watkins also worked with Billie Piper during her pop career
• the character of Elton Pope in Love & Monsters was named after Elton John, who recorded a cover version of In Private with Tennant for Fundamentalism (2006)
• Tennant and Lowe have collaborated with many other musicians, including Kylie Minogue, who played Astrid Peth in Voyage of the Damned
• the PSB revived the career of Dusty Springfield with the release of the single, What Have I Done to Deserve This? in 1987, leading to her PSB-produced album, Reputation in 1990 - the number one hit record, You Don't Have to Say You Love Me (1966), was heard in The Rebel Flesh, and Rory remarked that his mum was a fan of Dusty (along with Wilf Mott)
• Phil Oakey also dueted with Tennant (on Yes Etc. with This Used to be the Future), his former band, the Human League, recorded a tribute B-side track entitled Tom Baker in 1981
• Sir Ian McKellern (the voice of the Great Intelligence in The Snowmen) starred as a vampire in the video for Heart (1988)
• Ron Moody appeared as the Judge in the video for It's a Sin (1987), and he later voiced the Duke of Wellington for Big Finish's Other Lives (2005)
• the duo wrote I'm Not Scared for Eighth Wonder's vocalist Patsy Kensit in 1988 - she later voiced Mercenary for Kingdom of Lies (2018)
• Joanna Lumley starred in the video for Absolutely Fabulous (1994) and was later seen as the first female incarnation of the Doctor in The Curse of the Fatal Death
• Bettrys Jones, a dancer in the video for I'm With Stupid, voiced Judith for Black Thursday (2019)