I'm Coming to Take You to Lunch

A veteran manager of groups like the Yardbirds, Napier-Bell was just about ready to retire when Wham! fell into his lap. Although the group is little more than the answer to a trivia question at this point, Napier-Bell's account of the group's expedient rise and demise portrays the underhanded antics managers and producers employ behind the scenes, here encapsulated in Napier-Bell's campaign to secure the pop group a high profile concert in communist China. Napier-Bell's account of the struggle to arrange the performance is fraught with twists and turns, from the delicate navigation of a fabulously corrupt Chinese bureaucracy to his misrepresentation of Queen frontman Freddie Mercury to keep Queen from landing the gig before Wham! (Napier-Bell compiled a dossier on each band to circulate among the Chinese bureaucrats; one portrayed Wham! as wholesome, while the other depicted Queen as a bawdy carnival of homosexual debauchery. ""Yet the brochure wasn't at all offensive.""), not to mention the struggle for publicity, a band member's bout of insanity and competing mammoth egos. His attempts to weave in a subplot about financially and emotionally supporting two of his ex-lovers does little to further the book; the minor romantic spats and small victories distract from the larger tale of shepherding Andrew Ridgeley and George Michael to fame. That said, those interested in what goes on backstage and behind the scenes will find Napier-Bell's stories worthwhile and entertaining.