A new documentary, Wham!, detailing the rise of the eponymous 1980s pop duo – comprised of George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley – will air on Netflix on July 5th.
The band sold over 30 million records during their four-year run, appealing to a young audience with hits such as ‘Club Tropicana’ and ‘Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go’.
Ridgeley has reflected on the depiction of him and Michael in the documentary, which comes six-and-a-half years after the latter’s death. He explained to the Evening Standard that the documentary “took so long to do because while Yog [his nickname for Michael] was pursuing his own career, there was no great desire to explore the Wham! legacy.”
“It was important that the documentary had the same DNA as Wham!. The way it looked, the narrative, the feel, it had to feel like us. Chris Smith has used just Yog’s voice and my own, which gives it an intimacy and an honesty which is incontrovertible.”
“This is the genuine, authentic story. It certainly shows we had goals, that we were incredibly ambitious,” he continued.
Discussing his experience of watching the film, he shared, “When I saw the finished film, I found myself singing along to the songs. I didn’t expect to find it so enjoyable, but our exuberance, and the silliness that was so much a part of what we were, was so palpable, and infectious. You’d have to be a proper curmudgeon not to see that. The film is a shot in the arm.”
“We cared enormously about the records, and we went to great lengths to make them as good as possible, but we were never trying to be cool. We were just us,” Ridgeley continued. “As it says in the documentary, how could the nation fall in love with these two idiots? We mucked around on stage, hammed it up, and had a good time. We just didn’t take ourselves seriously.”
Watch the trailer below.
