The BFI has announced it is working with Pet Shop Boys on the forthcoming re-release of their feature film It Couldn’t Happen Here, directed by Jack Bond and starring Neil Tennant, Chris Lowe, Joss Ackland and Barbara Windsor. Unavailable worldwide for 30 years, the film has been newly remastered by the BFI from a 4K scan for release in a Limited Edition Blu-ray/DVD set on 15 June 2020. The re-release will be launched with a special preview screening at BFI Southbank on Friday 3 April 2020 at 20:10 in NFT1, preceded by an on-stage Q&A with Neil Tennant, Jack Bond and choreographer Arlene Phillips.
Originally conceived as an hour-long video based on Pet Shop Boys’ 1987 album Actually, It Couldn’t Happen Here turned into a full-scale feature film that finds Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe on an extraordinary adventure from the coast to London, encountering a curious array of eccentric characters along the way. With pop surrealism meeting the classic road movie, it features chart-topping singles from the duo’s first two studio albums, including ‘West End girls’, ‘It’s a sin’ and ‘Always on my mind’. The film was released in UK cinemas in July 1988 and subsequently on VHS video, but has never had a DVD or Blu-ray release before. As well as a 48-page book containing new writing, the discs will be accompanied by an exciting collection of extras including a brand new feature commentary with Jack Bond, co-writer James Dillon and cinematographer Simon Archer, new interviews and more. The film’s re-release follows Pet Shop Boys’ fourteenth studio album, and seventeenth Top 10 album Hotspot which was released on 24 January 2020, reaching No.3 in the album charts, and coincides with their 2020 world tour.
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