THE VIDEOS

I’M WITH STUPID

Few comedians were bigger in 2006 than Matt Lucas and David Walliams. Little Britain was still in its pomp and Walliams had yet to blot his copybook by insulting Britain’s Got Talent contestants. So the fact that the Pet Shop Boys managed to nab them for the video for Fundamental’s first single was a big deal. In it, the comedy duo stage a performance in which they play the roles of Neil and Chris, miming I’m with Stupid while dressed in outfits from the Very era. The promo ends with Walliams and Lucas asking for the approval of the audience, which is revealed to be Tennant and Lowe, fastened to their seats.

MINIMAL

A complete contrast to their I’m With Stupid video (no cross-dressing British comedians in this one), this Dan Cameron-directed promo is sleek and stylish and once more puts the actual duo front and centre. Filmed in Paris, it features a pair of dancers (Keir Knight and Thailai Knight specifically) moving to form the letters of the chorus, while Neil and Chris perform in front of a light display. The Australian-born, Central St Martins College Of Art-educated Cameron has also helmed videos for Blur (Music Is My Radar), Garbage (Androgyny) and David Guetta (People Come People Go).

NUMB

Another dramatic about-turn, this is more of a story video, albeit one of an avant-garde variety. Described on the Pet Shop Boys website as “an icy emotional landscape of borrowed dreams, sewn together with the power and style of Russian constructivist cinema”, it was directed by Julian Gibbs, Julian House, and Chris Sayer. Gibbs and House had previously directed music videos for Primal Scream, Luke Slater, and Doves, while Gibbs had come straight from a BBC adaptation of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, bringing some of that film’s fairy tale-like magic to this promo.