Cat.no: 200777 9

Cert: E

Running time: 45 minutes

Year: 1982-1986

Pressing: 2000

Region(s): 2 (UK PAL)

Chapters: 10 plus extras

Sound: Dolby Digital 5.1, Dolby Stereo

Languages: English

Subtitles: English, French

Ratio: varies

16:9-enhanced: No

Macrovision: Yes

Disc Format: DVD 5

Price: £19.99

Extras: Discography

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They only lasted a mere four years in this incarnation before George Michael's solo career was blossoming and Andrew Rideley was heading for pop's scrapheap. In that short space of time though they created a handful of cheesy pop anthems which would still light up a nightclub if they were played today, although they'd have to be relegated to an 80s night, such as Wake Me Up Before You Go Go, Wham Rap! and The Edge of Heaven and I can still remember Club Tropicana being given its world premiere on BBC Breakfast Time back with sexual deviant Frank Bough in 1983.

Seeing the track listing for this DVD though, it's missing four tracks which would have topped it off nicely, all of which appeared on the original 'best of' release, The Final in the late 80s, those being Young Guns (Go For It) and Bad Boys, plus George's first two solo singles, Careless Whisper and A Different Corner. How on earth did they come to miss those out? Answers please!

Their singles chart history, excluding George's solo stuff, is as follows :

Oct 82	No. 3	Young Guns (Go For It)
Jan 83	No. 8	Wham Rap
May 83	No. 2	Bad Boys
Jul 83	No. 4	Club Tropicana
Dec 83	No.15	Club Fantastic Megamix
May 84	No. 1	Wake Me Up Before You Go Go
Oct 84	No. 1	Freedom
Dec 84	No. 2	Last Christmas / Everything She Wants
Nov 85	No. 1	I'm Your Man
Dec 85	No. 6	Last Christmas (re-issue)
Jun 86	No. 1	The Edge of Heaven / Where Did Your Heart Go?
Dec 86	No.45	Last Christmas (2nd re-issue)

To think, had they not chanced their arm a third time with that Xmas single, they could have appeared in the Guinness Book of Hit Singles as one of those artists who went out on a high with a No.1 single.

There are 10 chapters and the listing is as follows :

1. Programme Start 2. Wham Rap! 3. Wake Me Up Before You Go Go 4. Club Tropicana 5. Last Christmas 6. The Edge of Heaven 7. Where Did Your Heart Go? 8. I'm Your Man 9. Everything She Wants 10. Freedom

The videos are shot either in standard 4:3 fullscreen or a non-anamorphic 16:9. It mostly looks very good too, except "Wham Rap!" suffers from its age, but that's only to be expected. The average bitrate is a very high 8.14Mb/s, often peaking over 9Mb/s.

The sound has been remixed for Dolby Digital 5.1. Most of the tracks benefit from this compared to the rather lacklustre stereo equivalent also contained, but the rear effects don't quite work as well during the first two tracks.

Extras :

There are subtitles in English and French, but the menus are silent and static.

Overall, this should've contained the extra tracks I mentioned and only cost a tenner. Will even the most wanton Wham fan fork out twenty notes for three-quarters-of-an-hour of material?

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2000.