New documentary revisits Wham!'s 1985 China tour

A new documentary revisits Wham!'s landmark 1985 tour of China, the first time a Western pop act had performed in the country. Wham! 10 Days In China, directed by Mike Christie, arrives on BBC iPlayer on August 29.

At the time, Wham! were already enormous in the UK, coming off two No. 1 singles, the million-selling "Last Christmas" and a chart-topping album, Make It Big. Manager Simon Napier-Bell pitched the China idea to George Michael over dinner, promising nonstop global publicity if the duo became the first pop group to play behind what was still, in Western media terms, a fairly closed country.

Napier-Bell spent more than a year and over a dozen trips courting Chinese officials, who scrutinized everything from song lyrics to costumes before approving two shows, in Beijing and Guangzhou. Wham! beat out a competing pitch from Queen, whose chances weren't helped by the drag video for "I Want to Break Free."

The shows themselves were tense. Loudspeakers instructed the audience to stay seated throughout, killing the atmosphere by Napier-Bell's own admission, and camera crews following the band were mistaken by some in the crowd for secret police. One man who got up to dance was beaten and arrested afterward, an incident that visibly shook the band. Backing singer Shirlie Holliman told Smash Hits at the time, "I just think what we're doing here is bad."

The new documentary draws on all of that tension, plus fresh interviews including Ridgeley revisiting China decades later. It also captures the trip's impact on Chinese fans who heard Western pop for the first time through smuggled cassettes. "Wham! made a huge impact on these young people," production consultant Ling Ling Coe says in the film. "Then it became a tidal wave. They saw what Western music was like and they wanted more."

George Michael never returned to China after that trip. Ridgeley, reflecting in the documentary, called the visit's legacy bigger than either of them realized at the time: "The most enduring and meaningful legacy of our visit to China is the power of music to shape lives."