Pet Shop Boys: The Most Incredible Thing – review

Neil Tennant called his band's late-80s spell of commercial infallibility their "imperial phase". But with a score that often sounds as though John Williams's Stormtroopers are about to march into view, those words seem apt here. The ballet that Tennant and Chris Lowe have scored (a forthcoming Sadler's Wells production) is based on a story by Hans Christian Andersen rather than George Lucas, but ominous melodrama prevails nonetheless, even when it comes via disco rather than dense orchestration. It's hard not to wonder what the dancers might be doing to all this and, as with Tennant's voice (which makes only a brief appearance), their absence is frustrating.