The duo\u2019s groundbreaking 1985 tour reveals a strange collision of pop stardom and communism, a re-edit of Lindsay Anderson\u2019s efforts that got him fired<\/p>\n
Here is a documentary that has a very important story to tell, maybe more important than it feels comfortable admitting. It\u2019s about two separate subjects \u2013 or maybe three: Wham!, China and film-maker Lindsay Anderson. A superpower nervously edging towards western-style openness, a pop band nervously doing what needed to be done to make it big in the US, and a great film director, needing the money, taking on a project he didn\u2019t really believe in.<\/p>\n
In 1985, Wham!\u2019s beetle-browed manager Simon Napier-Bell had a cunning plan for how George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley could break the US: Wham! would be the first ever western pop band to perform in mainland China. They would play where the Beatles, the Stones and Elvis had never played, and the resulting global publicity would launch them into the US. (He was right \u2013 it did.) In our modern age, the movie and music businesses routinely consider China as the key element of the all-important Asian market, but in 1985, Michael and Ridgeley were the Kirk and Spock of the charts, going where no pop act had gone before.<\/p>\n
![](\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/d71b8d51c43f2d5d410df462b849b3ae153aade8\/56_0_11250_9000\/master\/11250.jpg?width=140&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=12f4289433d2f2a6596e859cf9e2594a\" "\\"Wham!")
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