'Music unshackles us': Andrew Ridgeley on his trip to China with George Michael
Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael in a still from WHAM! 10 Days In China.
Andrew Ridgeley, one half of Wham!, is well aware of music’s power. Ridgeley, who performed alongside the late George Michael in Wham!, with hits such as and says this point was driven home by a fan after he wrote his autobiography.
“When my memoir was published, I had a signing in Piccadilly, and a lady had flown from Kabul, and she said that she grew up under the Taliban, and her brother had made a tape of the album,” says Ridgeley, 63, who penned in 2019.
“She said music was banned under the Taliban, which probably had pretty nasty consequences if you were found with it. But it [the tape] went around the village, during some of the darkest hours for Afghans.
“So I think one of the things that music does is find its way to people who listen to it in circumstances that might seem impossible to do so.
“Music has immense power to liberate us. It makes us feel light, it unshackles us. It adds substance to all our lives. It crosses cultures and generations. We’re lucky to have a body of work that does just that.”
Ridgeley has revisited Wham!’s cross-cultural influence in a new documentary, tracking the band’s journey as the first Western pop group to perform in communist China following the Cultural Revolution. Wham! were one of the most successful pop acts of the 1980s, selling more than 30 million certified records worldwide from 1982 to 1986, when the band disbanded.
In 1985, the duo held two concerts in Beijing and Guangzhou, which introduced their signature sound to Chinese audiences and marked a major turning point in their careers.
Ridgeley, who was lead guitarist, backing vocalist, and co-writer in the band, suggests there was a major reason for performing such high-profile shows, which is documented in
“We had a number-one album, a couple of number-one singles, and ordinarily one would have toured that around the arenas, but that’s a 30-day minimum tour. More likely, it’s a 60- or 90-day tour. And George had never been that keen on touring,” recounts Ridgeley, who says Michael – who died on Christmas Day in 2016 – had particularly suffered on a previous tour.
“His voice had broken down, and at that point in time, we didn’t know why. He had undiagnosed polyps. He had an operation, I think, in the late Eighties to resolve that problem. But before that, he couldn’t sing for extended tours without a problem,” he explains.
“So Simon Napier-Bell [Wham!’s manager] conceived the idea of going to China as a publicity exercise to raise our profile in the States to a household level, and he was right. I was really sceptical about the prospects of success and whether we would genuinely achieve the reach into people’s homes.”
draws on meticulously restored, newly digitised and never-before-seen archive footage, alongside interviews with those who experienced the tour firsthand. It revists the historical moment through the eyes of the band, their team and Chinese audiences encountering Western pop culture for the first time.
It follows in the footsteps of Ridgeley’s previous documentary film, 2024’s Wham! Last Christmas Unwrapped, which told the story of how the band turned one song into a cultural phenomenon, in celebration of 40th anniversary.
Ridgeley calls the concerts in China a “groundbreaking venture”, adding that the film “lays bare, in all their human contradictions, the individual perspectives behind what was a bold and risky, high stakes gamble”.
Performing in China was a culture shock – the film shows Michael saying to fans ahead of the shows: “We want everybody to get up and have a quick dance”, to which one appears to reply: “No”.
Ridgeley reflects: “We knew that we weren’t going to be playing to a hometown audience. We knew that it would be a subdued affair. But I don’t think we understood the concern and the trepidation of the authorities.
“I don’t think we were helped by the fact that Trevor, our break-dancing warm-up act, went into the crowd; I’m not sure we knew that was going to happen.
“I’m pretty sure the Chinese authorities didn’t know either, and I think that put them a wee bit on edge because they weren’t expecting the audience to be engaged in literally a hands-on fashion.
“It was communist China. There’s police presence everywhere. So it was inescapable, and of course the performance, George certainly, as is illustrated in the film, was affected by the response from the audience. For a frontman, you need a certain amount of audience response in order for the show to work well.”
Shortly after the band’s breakup, Ridgeley moving to Monaco to try Formula Three motor racing, then to Los Angeles to pursue a career in acting, but was met with little success. He returned to Britain permanently in 1990.
Looking back on the legacy of Wham!, Ridgeley says: “I’m amazed when I’m introduced to people’s kids, youngsters, whom Wham! is as fresh as new. It’s the first time they’re hearing it.
“But the character and the personality of the songs still have that same potency 40 years later, which is an amazing thing.”
- is in selected cinemas now, and will be shown on BBC Two in August
