BBC Two is to air a new programme called Wham!: Last Christmas Unwrapped to celebrate the “special” song’s 40th anniversary.
The hour-long film, which will air in December, will bring together artists, producers and music experts to give the story of Last Christmas’s creation and its enduring appeal.
It will see Wham! member Andrew Ridgeley return to Saas-Fee in Switzerland, where the song’s video was shot, visiting the ski lift and alpine chalet which feature in it.
Christmas was a special time of year for George and Christmas songs were a special type of song for him too and that was why he considered writing a Christmas classic one of the great achievements of his career
The mayor of Saas-Fee, who was the band’s driver during the shoot, will be interviewed and fans will be able to discover what happened to the diamante brooch which featured in the video.
During the show celebrity fans Mary J Blige, Sir Bob Geldof, Neil Tennant and Sam Smith will give their views on the song’s themes of unrequited love and loss.
Interviewees will also include Pepsi DeMacque-Crockett and Shirlie Kemp, who were the band’s backing singers and went on to become an act in their own right called Pepsi and Shirlie.
Viewers will also hear from George Michael, who died on Christmas Day in 2016, through archive radio and television footage.
Speaking of the new feature, Ridgeley said: “It’s a privilege, 40 years on, to be able to have this opportunity to celebrate Wham!’s wonderful and enduring musical homage to Christmas and I’m absolutely thrilled that Wham! in partnership with the BBC will present this joyful and touching tribute to the nation this Christmas.
“Christmas was a special time of year for George and Christmas songs were a special type of song for him too and that was why he considered writing a Christmas classic one of the great achievements of his career.
“Only he will ever know quite what inspired him to such dizzying heights, but his songwriting genius led him to distil the quintessential essence of Christmas into a song whose breadth of appeal spans the generations.
“Revisiting Saas-Fee, four decades on, with some of the closest friends of my youth was a very special experience and one which I know Yog (Michael’s nickname) would have loved to have shared in.”
The show will also see a world exclusive first broadcast of Michael performing Last Christmas at Wembley Arena in December 2006, never-seen-before outtakes from the original 35mm music video footage, and Michael and Ridgeley’s personal photographs.
The film has been produced in association with Ridgeley and George Michael Entertainment, which manages his estate.
An exact date for when the programme will be shown on BBC Two and iPlayer has not been announced.
Wham! released Last Christmas on December 3 1984 as a double A-side with Everything She Wants, but it was held off the top of the UK singles chart by Band Aid’s Do They Know It’s Christmas?, until December 2021 when it eventually topped the chart.
