What could be more thoroughly English than a fine bone china tea set? Just one thing: a limited edition Pet Shop Boys fine bone china tea set.
Yes, the band’s long time collaborators Farrow have teamed up with Duchess China of Stoke-on-Trent and Tennant and Lowe to produce this inspired piece of merch that celebrates 40 years since the band’s first single, West End Girls.
It includes a teapot, cups and saucers, a milk jug, and a sugar bowl. Each set is hand-finished and decorated, and comes with a product booklet and certificate of authenticity.
They go on sale on November 20 but you can pre-order now, with sets starting from £200. So if you’re a fan of the band and you love tea... what are you waiting for?
There aren’t any Pet Shop Boys songs about tea that we know. Over the decades coffee has cropped up in pop lyrics with surprising regularity, tea less so. There’s a track on the Kinks’ Muswell Hillbillies album, Have a Cuppa Tea, and there’s Nirvana’s Pennyroyal Tea and Cat Stevens’ Tea For The Tillerman, of course.
The drink has been mentioned in lyrics by Blondie (Dreaming), Blur (Chemical World) and Leonard Cohen (Suzanne) and famously The Rutles ‘experimented’ with tea – it was a profound influence on their Sgt Rutter’s Only Darts Club Band album.
In addition to the tea set Tennant and Lowe are set to announce an upcoming ‘expanded’ edition of their recent Nonetheless album. The album, released in April was their highest charting for thirty years and came out to a flurry of positive reviews and, as usual, accompanied by some highly entertaining interviews with the duo.
The band are also releasing a new double A-side single (and when was the last time you saw one of those?) to accompany the album. New London Boy is taken from the album, but it’s backed by their version of All The Young Dudes, which the duo performed when they played in Radio 2’s Piano Room earlier this year. It’s available as a digital bundle and – for those who still cherish tangible artifacts – two CD singles.
Meanwhile, Neil Tennant has been confirmed as performing as part of the inaugural London Soundtrack Festival in March 2025. He’ll be appearing alongside Jake Shears and Omar and Monica Mancini in an event called ‘Great Movie Songs’ that is set to be hosted by Anne Dudley.
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