Baffled fans, a mid-air stabbing and a very sneery director - a new film with unseen footage from the first ever pop tour of the Communist China reveals why Wham! saw red

As Wham! took to the stage in Beijing on 7 April 1985, they were making history as the first Western pop act to perform in China. 

An audience of 15,000 had come to see the band at the city's Workers' Gymnasium – a rather sterile-sounding venue for two of pop's most glamorous stars – but when George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley ran onstage they were greeted by a cacophony of… silence. 

As backing singer Shirlie Holliman says, 'I remember looking at George and I could read his face. There was confusion in his eyes.'

If confusion, awkwardness and plain discomfort are your bag, then Wham! 10 Days In China is the film for you. 

A riveting account of the band's ground-breaking trip 41 years ago, including footage from a documentary made at the time but not released because the director was sacked, it has everything from a mental breakdown and fans being dragged out of the concert for dancing to the extraordinary sight of a naked George being massaged while discussing the complexities of living in a Communist state. 

'It isn't just a straight celeb doc,' says director Mike Christie and as Andrew Ridgeley explains now: 'It's an authentic account; it's the rough with the smooth…Taking out the slightly uncomfortable bits wouldn't make such an engaging piece.'

For as the film, which will be released in cinemas this month and screened later this summer on BBC2, shows, absolutely nothing about the trip was simple. Andrew – now 63; George died ten years ago at the age of 53 – features at length, offering his brilliantly snippy commentary on those eventful ten days.

'To break the States was a huge ambition for any UK act,' he says, 'and George's ambition overrode everything.' But, having previously suffered with polyps on his vocal cords, George was reluctant to spend months touring small venues in order to crack America. 

'We wanted to fast-track Wham! straight to the top,' says Andrew. 'We didn't have the answer, but Simon did.'

Simon Napier-Bell was the band's co-manager and he decided that the quickest way for Wham! to garner headlines in the States was for them to be the first Western band to breach the Chinese wall. 

China, in turn, was keen to open its doors to foreign investment after the tumultuous years of the Cultural Revolution. 

But although Wham! were already big stars, it took Simon 18 months, 13 trips to China and some managerial chicanery to seal the deal.

Queen were also keen to perform in the country first, but when Simon presented Chinese officials with two brochures – one featuring Wham! looking wholesome, the other showing Freddie Mercury in typically flamboyant mode – the officials, unsurprisingly, plumped for Wham!. 

'I'm not sure that I was aware of that [at the time],' Andrew laughs, adding that although Queen never berated George and Andrew for the stunt their manager had pulled, Freddie had cause to thank Andrew a couple of months later. 

'My claim to fame is that I saved Freddie Mercury's life!' he says. 'We were on stage at Live Aid and there's a photo of me gripping him, pulling him off the edge of the stage because he was about to fall off.'

Yet of the duo's trip to the Far East, Andrew wasn't convinced. 'Wham! in China? Cynical,' he says. 'Untried, untested, risky. I didn't really like it. I felt we were there on false pretences. It was a circus.'

Director Lindsay Anderson, who had made his name with kitchen sink dramas such as the acclaimed film This Sporting Life, was hired to make a documentary about the historic visit. 

But it was clear from the start that the posh sexagenarian was never going to gel with fun- loving Andrew, then 22, and 21- year-old George, who'd been nicknamed Yog, a shortened version of his Greek name Georgios, by his bandmate. 

'Lindsay really had little or no respect for them,' says Mike. 

'He was very down on them being pop stars. He even said in his diary, ''I'm only doing it for the money.'' 

Or as Andrew more succinctly puts it: 'It seemed to me a marriage made in the very depths of hell. I think [Lindsay] found China disappointing and Wham! even more disappointing.'

Lindsay's footage shows the duo at the Great Wall, walking the streets and attending a reception hosted by the British ambassador. 

But as Andrew says, 'to be dragged around to contrived scenes was not something either of us were particularly comfortable with'. 

At the time, 'George was obviously wrestling with lots of different things, not least his future with Andrew,' says Mike. Also, George had yet to publicly come out.

In one awkward scene in a shop, George walks off, leaving Andrew to deal with the press and fans alone. 

'Andrew was protecting George, who clearly was a fragile youth,' says Mike. 

Andrew adds, 'George was a very private person. He constructed George Michael, and George Michael shielded Yog to a degree.'

Most of the audience in Beijing had never heard Western pop music; it was a lot louder than they were used to and involved a lot more movement.

So when Trevor, the breakdancing support act, went on, 'everyone found it very strange', according to one spectator. 

'The authorities hadn't seen anything like this before,' says Simon. 

'They were worried it was going to result in a riot. So when the interval came, there was an announcement that everyone had to stay in their seats.'

Oblivious to this, Wham! bounded onto the stage to complete silence. 

As a nervous George launched into Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, the camera panned over people looking baffled or emotionless. Some had their hands jammed over their ears. 

'We'd usually sit down to watch performances,' Chinese singer Cheng Fangyuan says. 'Nobody knew how to react. Most of them wanted to move but they didn't know how to.'

Things didn't improve when they did move. 'One man got up on his seat and he was dancing,' recalls organiser Ling Ling Coe. 

'The police took him away.' 'That incident made the concert political,' says Simon.

George declared the experience 'f****** horrible'. Andrew says, 'To perform and to give everything, which is what we always try to do, to no palpable effect, it was disheartening.' 

During the ensuing press conference, it was clear they didn't know that restrictions had been placed on the audience. 

According to Mike, 'they were thrown a little bit to the wolves' as they thought the reaction was down to their performance.

Another disaster unfolded as the band were flying to the second concert over 1,000 miles away in the city of Guangzhou. 

Trumpet player Raul D'Oliveira had a breakdown midair and stabbed himself in the stomach. 

As a blood-spattered Shirlie screamed beside him, the plane was turned around, ploughing down through the clouds. 'We all thought we were going to die,' remarks David Wigg, a journalist on the tour.

Thanks to its proximity to Hong Kong, Guangzhou was far more open to Western ideas, and the audience there couldn't have been more different, clapping and dancing. 

And just as Simon had predicted, four months later, having garnered tons of publicity, Wham! embarked on a sell-out tour of the States. 

'We set the US alight,' says Andrew. 'That was what Yog wanted. That was the whole purpose of the China enterprise.' 

In fact, the authorities did try to pay the duo for their record-breaking concerts, 'but because you couldn't take foreign currency out of the country,' says Andrew, 'I think that Simon was offered around 6,000 bicycles instead.' 

Although the offer was declined, 'I certainly don't regret it,' says Andrew with a smile. 'The freight costs would have been excessive.'

And the bikes weren't the only thing that were rejected. After George and Andrew saw a rough cut of Lindsay Anderson's film they sacked him. 

'It was just dull,' says Andrew. 'Endless scenes of agricultural workers and riverboat workers. 

As a travelogue piece it might have worked, but it certainly wasn't working for a pop band.' 

The film was ultimately never released, though one person who has seen it is Mike Christie. 

'It's a slightly bitter, incredibly ponderous, self-indulgent montage,' he says. 

However, Lindsay, who died in 1994, did leave behind a treasure trove of footage which Mike has now shaped into his own documentary – including George discussing Communism while being massaged, a towel barely covering his modesty. 

'There was a long discussion about whether or not we should be showing George naked,' admits Mike, 'but fortunately he himself said at the time his buttocks were nothing to be ashamed of.'

Though George called the Beijing concert 'the hardest performance I've ever given in my life', in time he came to appreciate its impact, saying, 'There are very few things you can do as a pop band that haven't been done before. It was a great privilege being the first to play real Western pop music to those people.'

Wham! 10 Days In China is in cinemas on 28 July.