Brilliantly various British cinemas (including the Odeon chain) will be screening the latest incarnation of the little-seen-before footage shot around Wham! in China, Wham! 10 Days in China doc (2026).
Though the director of this new 2026 cut is credited as Mike Christie the really cool thing is that most of the raw archival footage was shot by the great avant garde British film director Lindsay Anderson in 1985 when he accompanied the boys to China. Infamously his original cut, If You Were There (1986), was scrapped by George and Andrew. It’s fascinating as it includes a lot of shots of mid-1980s Guangzhou and Beijing as well as concert footage.
Previously that footage had been heavily reedited by Andy Morahan as Wham! in China: Foreign Skies (1986) played at the farewell gig at Wembley. Anyway, for all who haven’t seen any of this footage or weren’t there (!) you can see the doc from July 28.
I think it is also screening worldwide but don’t know any details. Here’s some more background on the footage, the tour, the rows about if afterwards etc from The Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/film/2026/jul/27/andrew-ridgeley-wham-china-george-michael-lindsay-anderson) and of course there’s Simon Napier-Bell’s classic behind-the-scenes account of it all I’m Coming to Take You to Dinner (2006).
Just a little follow up to my Ana May Wong and Lentheric’s Shanghai ad campaign yesterday – Riding the coat-tails of the perfume’s popularity, Lenthéric expanded the line to include a men’s Shanghaiperfumed brilliantine hair oil, which came in what they called a skyscraper-style geometric Art Deco bottle.
I had not know that May Wong appeared in advertisements for ”Shanghai by Lentheric” during it’s 1946-1947 promotional campaign. A weird time to be promoting “Shanghai” (an “Oriental floral” fragrance) given the state of China and the civil war but Shanghai was launched in 1916. But it had been perennially popular competing against famous scents such as Guerlain’s Shalimar (who had Rita Hayworth as their endorser).
It was really about branding more than ingredients (it didn’t even have ylang ylang!). Shanghai was a reboot of Lenthéric’s 1911 Cœur de Paris (“Heart of Paris”) with a more art deco and exoticised campaign. The brand needed a post-war boost so they hired Anna May Wong. Promotional packages sent to the public and retailers were encased in brilliant yellow boxes adorned with yellow silk tassels studded with genuine Chinese coins (hyperinflation meant getting sacks of coins was easy enough!).
Shanghai was discontinued in the mid-1950s – perhaps the Shanghai allure had rather paled by then!
Young Peggy Hookham leaves Shanghai in 1933 to head to the Vic-Wells Ballet School (then Sadler’s Wells and now the Royal Ballet School) in London to study with Ninette de Valois, rise to become Prima Ballerina and become known as Margot Fonteyn. The Romer-Peeler dance school was run by Helen Romer and Ruby Peeler. Celesta was a photographic studio on the Bubbling Well Road (Nanjing West Road).
An interview and some photographs in the South China Morning Post from the great, Pulitzer Prize winning Liu Heung Shing’s new book Old Road New Connections (ACC Art Books), from all along the Belt and Road Initiative…..click here to read
A 1933 colonial Hong Kong take on Yuefenpai (月份牌), Shanghai’s calendar posters. This one from Fletcher & Co, chemists of Queen’s Road Central. The portrait, “Primrose” is by Stanley Davis who I believe was an English-born New Zealand artist who worked for the NZ Railways Advertising Department. I think “Primrose” was one of a series of 1920s women he painted originally on silk.
This photograph of the Shanghai Bund (Waitan) was published in American newspapers in 1935. Anyone who knew Shanghai then may have laughed over their breakfast pancakes as the image is at least ten or 15 years out of date. No Cathay Hotel, no construction of the Bank of China building and no cars, plus a few other giveaways…. I think this photo must have been taken from the spire of Gilbert Scott’s Holy Trinity Church (aka the “Red Church”), c.1869 that still stands (despite Red Guards and fire) at the northern end of the Bund on Jiujiang Lu.
Petworth House in West Sussex is well worth a visit if you’ve never been. Landscaped gardens created by Capability Brow, a beautiful house which includes a collection of art featuring works by JMW Turner and John Constable. You may know it from Bridgerton. I have in the past blogged about the Chinoiserie and Chinese pieces at Petworth (here) which includes Chinese vases from the Kangxi Period (c.1662-1772) and cabinets. This makes Petworth an excellent location for a new exhibition Expressions in Blue: Monumental Porcelain by Felicity Aylieff.
Aylieff’s highly ornamental floral fencai enamelled vessels, some over 6ft tall and all made in Jingdezhen, take their inspiration from the decorative interior in Petworth’s Carved Room, in particular the intricate wood carvings by Grinling Gibbons. A couple of examples below and you can see more details here.
Expressions in Blue: Monumental Porcelain by Felicity Aylieff is on till 27 September 2026 (click here for details)…
