Five days ahead of its official release on October 9th, Pet Shop Boys’ new album, ‘A man from the future’ – which explores the life, death, and legacy of Alan Turing, the pioneering British mathematician and codebreaker who laid the foundations of modern computing – will be played out in full during two BBC global radio broadcasts on Sunday 4th October 2026.
World exclusive premiere
The complete recording will be given its exclusive world premiere during Stuart Maconie’s ‘Freak Zone’ show on BBC Radio 6Music on Sunday, 4th October at 8pm UK time. Maconie will then interview the English synth-pop duo, vocalist Neil Tennant and keyboardist Chris Lowe, and their collaborator, British mathematician, Wadham College, Oxford emeritus fellow, and Turing biographer, Andrew Hodges about the creative process behind the work, and their interest in blending electronic and orchestral music.
‘A man from the future’ will then also be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 at 11.30pm during Elizabeth Alker’s ‘Unclassified’ programme, before the Pet Shop Boys and Hodges join Alker in the studio to reflect on the original performance and its 2026 evolution. Both programmes will be available on BBC Sounds for 30 days after transmission.
Pet Shop Boys and Hodges will also take part in an album listening party event (now sold out) on Thursday 8th October at the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester which will feature a full playback of the album followed by a discussion about the work. The conversation will also be filmed and made available online shortly afterwards.
In September, Pet Shop Boys visited Bletchley Park with Hodges to film a piece about the album and Alan Turing for BBC News.
The making of ‘A man from the future’
Created in collaboration with Turing biographer, Hodges, and performed by Pet Shop Boys and chamber orchestra ensemble subset, the Manchester Camerata Octet and the Manchester Grammar School choir, with narration by Olivier-Award-winning English actor, Juliet Stevenson and string arrangements by German composer, arranger, and music producer, Sven Helbig, the album explores eight significant chapters in the life and death of Alan Turing, the pioneering British mathematician, logician, and cryptanalyst widely regarded as the father of theoretical computer science.
Both the words and the music have been revised and updated since its original performance with the BBC Concert Orchestra and 18-piece choir, the BBC Singers, conducted by Dominic Wheeler, at the Royal Albert Hall as part of the BBC Proms in 2014. Co-produced by Pet Shop Boys and Helbig, the 2026 edition has an electronic emphasis and features a more intimate string arrangement by Helbig, who provided the original orchestrations in 2014. Stevenson, who also featured in the 2014 Royal Albert Hall performance, returns in this recording, delivering narration edited from Hodges’ 1983 biography, ‘Alan Turing: The Enigma’, which has been updated by Hodges for this 2026 revision.
This new version will be released as the band’s sixteenth studio album (and first concept album) on October 9th via the duo’s own label, x2 and Parlophone Records. Album artwork design is by longtime collaborator, Mark Farrow.
The story behind the album
Pet Shop Boys’ piece was inspired when Tennant watched ‘Britain’s Greatest Codebreaker’, a Channel 4 docu-drama about Turing’s life. The songs tell his story chronologically in eight parts, taking the listener through: his school days and his early interest in STEM; his time at Cambridge University; his role working for the British Government to unlock the German Enigma machine’s encrypted messages during World War II; his place in the invention of the digital computer and his early predictions about artificial intelligence; his trial and conviction for a homosexual relationship; his tragic death in 1954; the royal pardon granted to him in 2013, and finally his enduring legacy and influence.
“Turing was way ahead of his time in the realms of both technology and sexuality,” said Pet Shop Boys. “His open expression of his homosexuality was astonishingly brave and forward-looking at a time when gay men were relentlessly persecuted by the government.”
The duo said about the album, “Our motive in creating this work was to make a musical memorial to Alan Turing who gave so much to his country and the world and was rewarded for it by being prosecuted for his sexuality. Alan made a massive contribution to the defeat of Germany in World War Two and was a pioneer of computing, imagining a world with intelligent computers. He also looked forward to a time when being gay would be accepted as normal. In both his professional and private lives, he was ahead of his time.”
The title track features an excerpt from a 2009 statement made by former Prime Minister, Gordon Brown acknowledging Turing’s work and apologising for the inhumane treatment he received, which is followed by the posthumous royal pardon granted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2013.
Lorna Clarke, BBC Director of Music says: “When Pet Shop Boys debuted ‘A man from the future’ at the BBC Proms 12 years ago, audiences were treated to an ambitious and moving tribute to the life and legacy of Alan Turing, whose work shaped the modern world. I’m delighted that this October, the BBC will be the first to share their new interpretation with audiences across the UK on 6 Music and Radio 3.”
The album “A man from the future” is now available to pre-order in various formats at: https://shop.petshopboys.co.uk/collections/a-man-from-the-future/
