Why Lindsay Anderson Was Fired From the Wham China Film
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- Lindsay Anderson was hired in early 1985 to direct a theatrical documentary of Wham!'s trip to China — the first pop group to play there — but was dismissed six months later after screening his 80-minute first cut "If You Were There..." for George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley.
- Jazz Summers and Simon Napier-Bell, Wham!'s management duo, engineered the firing after George suddenly announced he was leaving Wham! following the 11-show North American stadium tour of August-September 1985, jeopardising years of expected profits.
- The managers pivoted to a sellable home-video product inspired by Vestron's "Making Michael Jackson's Thriller" VHS, which had sold millions in the still-early home-video market, rendering Anderson's art-house documentary commercially unviable in their eyes.
- The producer resigned rather than fire Anderson himself; Anderson was fired minutes later via a phone call from Jazz, though both retained their respective director and producer credits.
- George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley had never been briefed on the serious-documentary vision agreed in February 1985 and were "totally unprepared" for what Anderson's first cut showed them, having expected a fluff-piece travelogue.
- A bowdlerised one-hour derivative titled Foreign Skies, assembled by music-video operators from Anderson's footage, premiered at Wham! The Final at Wembley Stadium in June 1986 — positioned as a support act between Elton John (in Ronald McDonald costume) and Gary Glitter.
- A new George Michael estate-sanctioned film, Wham! 10 Days in China, draws on Anderson's rescued unseen footage from the vaults but does not focus on the dismissal story behind the trashing of his original work.
Why it matters: Anderson was one of Britain's most respected arthouse directors (This Sporting Life, O Lucky Man!), and his 80-minute China film has essentially become an "un-film" — screened only once for his BFI centennial — meaning a significant cinematic record of China on the cusp of modernisation has been buried for four decades because managers preferred a Thriller-style cash-in. The estate's new film finally surfaces the footage but politely skips the political backstory, leaving Anderson's reputation still tied to the bowdlerised Foreign Skies rather than his original cut.
