This unlikely event had taken band manager Simon Napier-Bell 18 months of negotiations to organise; a process documented in his 2005 book I’m Coming To Take You To Lunch.

The idea to play China came about following the bands insistence that they become the biggest act in the world within two years. Napier-Bell and co-manager Jazz Summers knew that this would be impossible following the conventional route – namely touring America continuously for years – so came up with the China tour as a globally-press-worthy publicity stunt. Napier-Bell flew to China and sat in hotel rooms calling whatever government phone numbers he could get his hands on, usually leaving the message: “Tell them Simon Napier-Bell called to take them to lunch”.

“It was two years of lunches – I fed the whole government, 143 people three times each.”

The resulting shows were captured in a Popumentary which itself was not short of difficulties behind the scenes.

The final version, Wham! In China : Foreign Skies, seems to be out of print but is available in it’s full glory on Chinese YouTube-a-like, Youku:

The film was shown to 70,000 Wham! fans at their 1986 Wembley concert, the largest audience ever for a premiere. It might not be an enduring classic – it is slow and fairly insubstantial – but the impossibly absurd sight of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley, replete with bouffant hair and metre-wide shoulder pads, meeting the staid Chinese bureaucracy mano-a-mano is too good to miss. Choice quotes abound throughout:

“Where are all the screaming girls?” – George Michael at Beijing Airport

Beyond this, Careless Whisper has now been added to my list of “Secret Shames”. Fantastic song.

© Ed Peto 2008

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