She's been a smack addict, she's had big success in Europe in the '70s, and she's lost everything. She's been rediscovered in the '80s, and as we meet her she's just about to sign a new recording contract.

We hope we are moving toward a world where sexual orientation is not an issue, because we hate the idea of a gay ghetto. I think that it's a real shame that people become restricted by their sexuality or define their whole lives by their sexuality.

She's a very charismatic character, and she holds the whole play together.

There's the paradox of making pop music when you're in your 50s. People weren't meant to be doing that originally and yet they are. Mick Jagger [used to say] we're not going to be doing Satisfaction when I'm in a wheelchair.

The first song is called 'London.' It's about two Russian soldiers who desert the Russian army and escape to London, where they indulge in a life of crime.

It's fundamental that what we do only exists in our own universe. When you like Pet Shop Boys, you are in our world.

To a certain extent, this tour is a celebration of individuality and that you can invent and reinvent yourself. You should have the power to be able to do that. Sexuality is a part of that. It should release you. It doesn't have to be an issue. It shouldn't box you in.

A lot of what used to be known as gay culture - broadly speaking, homoeroticism and being camp - has been brought into mainstream culture. I think we should be moving to an era where it's just sex.

I think the world should be one community.

When I was I younger I didn't want to be gay. Not because I was scared of the sexual thing I didn't want to be a clone. Now this was in the late '70s.

Because some people have sex with people of the same sex, an entire culture has been created, broadly speaking, out of oppression. Which in a rational world would not be an issue.

I didn't want to wear a checked shirt and grow a mustache - that's what you had to do, and everyone did.