Wham! 10 Days in China review – pop meets politics in George and Andrew’s great leap east

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The duo’s groundbreaking 1985 tour reveals a strange collision of pop stardom and communism, a re-edit of Lindsay Anderson’s efforts that got him fired Here is a documentary that has a very important story to tell, maybe more important than it feels comfortable admitting. It’s about two separate subjects – or maybe three: Wham!, China and film-maker Lindsay Anderson. A superpower nervously edging towards western-style openness, a pop band nervously doing what needed to be done to make it big in the US, and a great film director, needing the money, taking on a project he didn’t really believe in. In 1985, Wham!’s beetle-browed manager Simon Napier-Bell had a cunning plan for how George Michael and Andrew Ridgeley could break the US: Wham! would be the first ever western pop band to perform in mainland China. They would play where the Beatles, the Stones and Elvis had never played, and the resulting global publicity would launch them into the US. (He was right – it did.) In our modern ag...
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‘Truth is sacred’: Tom Hanks gives keynote speech and receives honorary degree from Harvard

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The two-time Academy Award winner spoke to the graduates on truth and was given a volleyball as a gift

As the US grapples with a disinformation crisis, Tom Hanks told graduates of Harvard on Thursday to be superheroes in their defense of truth and American ideals, and to resist those who twist the truth for their own gain.

“For the truth to some is no longer empirical. It’s no longer based on data, nor common sense, nor even common decency,” the two-time Academy Award winner said during his keynote address. He invoked the Latin word for truth, “veritas”, Harvard’s motto.

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