**Wilton’s Music Hall • 14 October - 25 October**

The dogged regularity that the Pet Shop Boys/Jonathan Harvey musical Closer To Heaven finds itself being revived has always been something of a mystery to me, it falling short of being the guaranteed hit it might have otherwise been expected to be. From it’s first appearance in 2001 at the Arts Theatre in London, both this and the subsequent productions (Union Theatre - 2015, Above The Stage - 2019, Turbine Theatre - 2024), all failed to win me over, despite being a committed life-long fan of the Pet Shop Boys, not to mention periodically returning to Jonathan Harvey’s sitcom Gimme Gimme Gimme when in need of a damn good, albeit high camp, laugh.

The original Arts Theatre production wasn’t without it’s one singular strength however, that being the incredible Frances Barber in the role of Billie Trix, the retired rock icon, actress and artist who was woefully underused in the original musical given that hers was the only character that approached three dimensions in the whole show. Harsh my critique of Closer To Heaven might have been, but the brilliance of Barber in the role and the untapped potential of the character Harvey had created was never up for question, and clearly hadn’t gone unnoticed by either writer or musicians as it wasn’t long before Billie Trix resurfaced in her own show MUSIK. More ‘adjacent to’ than ‘sequel to’ Closer To Heaven, the decision to bring her back in a one woman cabaret show scores where the previously narrative driven affair failed to ignite, and allows Barber to beguile the audience as Billie Trix all over again, her smokey, acerbic rasp as infectious as ever, even if it has been 24 years since she first brought the character so vibrantly to life.

As her story unfolds it becomes clear that Trix has been Zelig-like in the way she is not only able to insert herself into many if the most important counter-cultural events of the 20th century, but also claims to being responsible for many of them. From inspiring Andy Warhol to paint soup cans, to giving Madonna her signature style, and unknowingly gifting Shania Twain her most successful hit, all the while dropping names of similar encounters with the likes of Klaus Kinski, Salvador Dali, Jackson Pollock, Damien Hirst, Eminem, John Paul Satre, Tracy Emin and the Dali Lama. She also has a number of surprising connections to some of the world’s most powerful politicians, but how she weaves them into her hilariously debauched biography would be one spoiler too many for me to divulge here.

Just how she has survived to tell her story at all remains a mystery in itself given her excessive indulgences with drugs, alcohol and sex, but where as Closer To Heaven seemed to be a confused ramble through a paper-thin story, MUSIK is sharply focused and hilariously funny, the discarding of the previous shows more one dimensional characters bringing Billie Trix even more vividly to life, and centre stage where she belongs.

As Billie Trix, Frances Barber also had the most memorable song from Closer To Heaven, that being the genuinely moving Friendly Fire, which understandably gets a very welcomed reprise here. The rest of the score are mostly original songs, albeit there being the odd throwback to another theme from the previous production. Barbers immaculate performance, Harvey’s re-energised writing and the Pet Shop Boys sublime musical interludes are all underscored by the equally impressive stage design, itself looking like a backdrop to a nineties pop promo, the large video screen showing perfectly timed pop-art animations that visualise Trix’s ‘almost’ believable journey from East Berlin to a telephone box in Soho via the streets on New York. A number of television screens are also stacked on either side of the video wall to further enhance the shows accomplished visual feast.

This is most definitely Barbers night through as, even with such colourful visuals to contend with, it is hard to take your eyes off such an enigmatic performance. Whilst the show was first performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2019 before heading to London in 2020, this latest outing see’s Harvey updating some of the references to bring Billie Tris’s story bang up to date. Sadly, for me, these are the moments that fell short of the well conceived storytelling displayed up until that point, these later references feeling rather more ‘crowbarred in’ than ‘hilarious anecdote’. Despite that, it’s an evening that will have you laughing from start to end, Barber proving once again that Billie Trix is uniquely hers and hers alone.

★★★★