GEORGE MICHAEL: FREEDOM, C4, 9pm
KATE Moss introduces this film, saying her friend George Michael had been working on it the night before he died. “This is his film, Freedom, and it’s his final work.”
An incredible list of celebrity contributors reveal their love for George Michael, including Ricky Gervais, Liam Gallagher, Stevie Wonder, Elton John and Naomi Campbell — who admits she was more of a Culture Club fan, and they “used to throw eggs at the Wham fans.”
But the star is George Michael himself, as he looks back on his life with great humour, especially when he mocks his old image, laughing at how he wore tight shorts and had “curtain rings” in his ears, and that he “lived in f*****g sunglasses!” He is gloriously unapologetic in saying he wanted fame and adoration. Things get darker as he discusses getting to “the edge of madness” with his record company who refused to accept he was “growing up”, and he talks of losing a beloved partner to AIDS, but all these dark episodes are overshadowed further by the viewers’ knowledge that the singer himself is dead.
ABORTION ON TRIAL, BBC2, 9pm
IT seems strange that this topic is still being debated and put “on trial”. The answer seems very simple: it’s a decision for the woman concerned, and no-one else. It’s not a religious or moral issue, and it’s not even a feminist issue: it’s an individual issue. But so many things seem to be regressing these days, so why not this one?
Fifty years after the Abortion Act was passed, Anne Robinson chairs a debate between nine people who all hold different views on abortion. The debate is held in Robinson’s own home, which seems like a strange choice of venue. It suggests the matter is indeed personal, yet the very fact strangers want to tell a woman what to do with her body proves that it is not.
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