Wham!: Last Christmas Unwrapped

Last Christmas was looking to be a shoe in to be the Christmas number one in 1984. It was denied by the rush release of the Band Aid charity single raising funds for Ethiopia. The song also featured vocals by George Michael.

Since then Last Christmas has become a perennial festive favourite. It finally reached the Christmas number one position in 2023 and 2024.

Unfortunately George Michael died on Christmas day in 2016. Not living long enough to see his song reach the top of the tree.

This documentary to examine the song was really a promotional puff piece. There was very little in depth about it. Repeating things several times.

Andrew Ridgeley could not add much to how the song came about. It was an excuse for some of them to get together in the Swiss resort where the video was shot.

There was a bit where the narrator mentions that Michael played all the music in the track. It turned out to be a drum machine and keyboards where he used two fingers in each hand. Michael was no Prince, who could expertly play every instrument including the drums.

By the end I really could not see much point with this documentary. It could had been done and dusted in half the time.

WHAM's 'Last Christmas' has always been one of the most popular Christmas records here in the UK, but in recent times this seems to have gone up a notch.

It was the Christmas Number One in 2023 and 2024 and there was even a film based upon its lyrics in 2019.

You can see therefore why some BBC exec in charge of filling out the corporations Christmas schedules would think to mark the 40th anniversary of the song it would be a good idea to reunite those involved to discuss how the song and the iconic video came to be.

Unfortunately, while this is all very nice and well-intentioned, it also misses the mark.

Like too many Christmas programmes in the schedules, this is stretched at an hour, and there's too much pointless chats that feels staged for the benefit of the camera crew.

It tries to cover too many things (the history of WHAM, George Michael as a person and an artist) and yet never really fully delivers what we wanted from this in the first place.

All involved in the video should have had a nice little holiday in the original video's location, and left the camera crew at home.

A disappointment.