In 1985, British band Wham! made history as the first Western pop act to perform in communist China.
George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley’s concerts in Beijing and Guangzhou were a cultural milestone – East meets West, music meets politics. Now, newly restored footage reveals the untold story of the iconic tour that helped launch Wham! to global superstardom.
The documentary Wham! 10 Days in China, which revisits the historic tour, will screen for one night only at Luna Leederville on Tuesday, 28 July, and is a must-see for fans of the band.
George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley were riding high in the mid-1980s. Their second album, Make It Big, had topped the charts and produced a string of hits, including Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, Careless Whisper, Freedom, Everything She Wants and the festive favourite Last Christmas.
The band’s management came up with a plan to make the duo the first Western pop act to perform in China. To secure the opportunity, manager Simon Napier-Bell devised a devious strategy to thwart another popular band from claiming the honour.
Napier-Bell presented Chinese officials with two promotional brochures: one portraying Wham! as a clean-cut, wholesome act, and another showing Queen frontman Freddie Mercury in flamboyant poses. The Chinese officials chose Wham!
The band did not make any money from the concerts in China, but they generated worldwide publicity through images of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley visiting the Great Wall of China and performing in Beijing and Guangzhou.
People in China may not have known who George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley were, but the rest of the world knew that Wham! were in China.
The band also took a large documentary film crew with them to record the trip. Director Lindsay Anderson brought a 35-member crew for the project.
When Anderson delivered his completed film, titled If You Were There after one of the band’s songs, it was rejected by Wham! and their management. Anderson had created an insightful documentary about consumerism arriving in communist China, but it did not place enough emphasis on the band.
His version was shelved. Anderson was dismissed and the footage was re-edited into the documentary Wham! in China: Foreign Skies. That version premiered the following year at Wembley Stadium ahead of the band’s final concert.
It became a huge seller on VHS, and clips from the documentary were used to create a music video for Freedom, which had already been released in most territories.
It was not what Napier-Bell had originally hoped for. In his autobiography, I’m Coming to Take You to Lunch, he revealed that he had wanted to create a film worthy of a cinema release. Just five years later, Madonna would achieve that with her tour documentary Truth or Dare (released as In Bed with Madonna outside North America).
In an interview with British music programme The Tube the following year, George Michael reflected on the experience of performing in China, recalling that an announcement was made before the concert informing the audience that dancing and clapping would not be allowed.
Michael also revealed that because it was almost impossible to take money out of China at the time, the band were offered payment in bicycles.
“It wasn’t a financial venture,” Michael said, explaining that the appeal had been the opportunity to introduce Western music to Chinese society and culture.
In his memoir, Wham! George and Me, Andrew Ridgeley recalled that when the duo was first presented with the idea of performing in China, they thought it was “crackers”.
The original version of the tour documentary is held by the University of Stirling. George Michael’s estate has blocked public screenings of the film, although it can be viewed privately for research purposes.
Prior to Wham!’s concerts, only French electronic musician Jean-Michel Jarre had performed in China, playing a series of concerts there in 1981. It would be another decade before another major Western pop act performed in the country, with Roxette playing the same venue ten years later.
Now, director Mike Christie has created a new documentary using restored footage from the trip. The film also follows Andrew Ridgeley as he returns to China decades later and features interviews with audience members who attended the landmark concerts.
“This film finally reveals the unknown legacy of Wham!’s groundbreaking venture, and lays bare, in all their human contradictions, the individual perspectives behind what was a bold and risky, high-stakes gamble,” Ridgeley said of the new documentary.
Get tickets to see the film.
