By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ****

We’ve not written a lot about George Michael because we regarded his imperial phase as WHAM! but never saw him live until he was solo at Wembley Stadium when his hunger for writing number 1s appeared to have been lost.

• Read on for reasons including how WHAM! were a gateway for us to music we would go on to love

It’s that hunger that is explored here in a documentary which uses archive spoken footage from the late Michael and a commentary from much-derided bandmate Andrew Ridgeley which pinpoints exactly the major role Ridgeley played in launching Michael’s solo career.

Georgios Kyriacos Panayiotou’s best friend at school was Ridgeley who nicknamed him ‘Yog’, co-wrote Careless Whisper with him and supported, encouraged and coaxed the now-known-as George Michael into a world of pop music that Yog may have struggled to have entered if that early friendship had not been forged.

We were 12 years old when WHAM! 1st appeared on Top Of The Pops when a fellow act dropped out last minute and we loved how fresh Young Guns – Go For It sounded with its rapping and pop hooks and how hip it also seemed with its formation dancing with singers Dee C Lee and Shirlie.

We enjoyed hearing here how WHAM!’s love of apeing The Human League saw the female singers recruited with Pepsi later replacing the departing Lee.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8huyeTjZjik&t=14s

What we didn’t appreciate then was how close the band were to not making it and that is explored here with original flop single Wham Rap (Enjoy What You Do) taking its lyrical inspiration from 80s life on the dole as a young person.

The documentary really steps into gear when Ridgeley confides that Michael came out to him while the band were recording the video for what was to be their 4th hit, Club Tropicana.

1983 was a far less friendly time than now to come out of the closet and, although Michael told his friends, this documentary charts his struggles with not being open with his family and the public while going on to become a solo star with sales to rival worldbeaters Prince, Michael Jackson and Madonna after the group disbanded.

We see footage of how teenagers would go wild for the band’s initial live shows where Michael and Ridgeley would amp up their sexuality and playfully hide shuttlecocks in their pants before using a badminton racket to fire them out into the audience to its squealing delight.

At the same time Michael was channelling this forbidden need to be loved through his creativity and 1984 saw an astonishing run of number 1s including Wake Me Up Before You Go Go!, Whisper, a solo single in some countries, Freedom and then Last Christmas, beaten by Band Aid in that year but which would later go on to chart annually and eventually reach the summit.

For us WHAM! were very much the innocent gateway to music that we would very much go on to love including Motown and funk, as well as pure pop, but it’s their later work, especially last single Edge Of Heaven, that we absolutely adore.

We had a Saturday job at WH Smith’s and so missed WHAM! The Final, the band’s last gig, at Wembley Stadium much to our disappointment and saw Michael there years later when he was a shadow of the imperious WHAM! star he had been.

We would love to see a documentary examining this later period and exploring his fall but for now this 1 charting his WHAM! rise is an absolute nostalgic thrill, while also signposting the difficulties in store for those struggling to be completely open about their sexuality.

• Main picture via Facebook courtesy WHAM! on Netflix Watch
• Have you seen a WHAM! or George Michael show? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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