Wham! documentary revisits 1985 China tour that opened the door for Western pop

A new documentary chronicles the 10-day trip that made Wham! the first Western pop act to perform in communist China.

In April 1985, George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley landed in Beijing to begin a historic tour, becoming the first Western pop act to perform in communist China, according to BBC News (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c78glnk524lo). The duo played twice during the visit — in Beijing and Guangzhou — introducing live Western pop music to audiences with little prior exposure, the BBC reports.

The trip was the bold plan of manager Simon Napier-Bell, who wanted to generate global headlines and raise the pair's profile ahead of a US stadium tour, according to BBC News. Ridgeley, now 63, recalls a muted reception on arrival. "There weren't as many people as greeted The Beatles," he says, comparing it to the Fab Four's 1964 US arrival. "It was a much more muted affair. There was no knowledge of us there at the time."

The new film, Wham! 10 Days in China, features remastered footage of the trip and interviews with audience members whose lives it changed, the BBC reports. Ridgeley calls the manager's strategy a "masterstroke" but says the more "touching aspect" is the tour's impact on Chinese people, motivating some to pursue music. He notes it is a "real pity" that Michael, who died in 2016, never returned to meet those whose lives were changed.

In archive footage used in the film, Michael describes the China trip as "a bit of a nightmare" while recognising its significance. "We had a responsibility, being the first people to play real western pop music to those people," he says. Four months after the tour, Wham! launched a sell-out US stadium tour, and less than a year later played their final Wembley concert, The Final, in June 1986, according to BBC News.

The 90-minute documentary will be released in cinemas worldwide on 28 July 2026 through Trafalgar Releasing, followed by a broadcast on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer later in the summer, according to the BBC Media Centre (https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/2026/bbc-two-bbc-music-wham-10-days-in-china). It follows the 2023 Netflix film Wham! and 2024's Last Christmas Unwrapped in a run of projects preserving the band's legacy, the BBC reports.

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