Airdate: Freddie Mercury: The Final Act
The story of the extraordinary final chapter of Freddie Mercury’s life and how, after his death from AIDS, Queen staged one of the biggest concerts in history.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under Programming, Video
Newly-released BBC documentary Freddie Mercury: The Final Act will screen on ABC next month.
This documents the extraordinary story of Freddie Mercury’s battle with AIDS and the groundbreaking tribute concert Queen staged in his memory after he died.
The story of the extraordinary final chapter of Freddie Mercury’s life and how, after his death from AIDS, Queen staged one of the biggest concerts in history, the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium, to celebrate his life and challenge the prejudices around HIV/AIDS.
The film hears from those who performed at the epic gig, including Gary Cherone (Extreme), Roger Daltrey (The Who), Joe Elliott (Def Leppard), Lisa Stansfield and Paul Young, as well as the concert’s promoter, Harvey Goldsmith.
For the first time, Freddie’s story is told alongside the experiences of those who tested positive for HIV and lost loved ones during the same period. Medical practitioners, survivors and human rights campaigners, including Peter Tatchell, recount the intensity of living through the AIDS pandemic and the moral panic it brought about.
Tuesday 15 March 8.30pm on ABC.
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2 Responses
How many Queen/Freddie Mercury documentaries do we need? There seems to be hundreds of them.
As a die-hard fan there’s definitely a lot, and Nine repeats Bohemian Rhapsody / Adam Lambert specials a lot. So there’s a lot of footage I’ve seen reused many times over. Not a lot has been done on the epic tribute concert which even included Liza and Elizabeth Taylor at a time when HIV / AIDS was more dangerous than viruses we are seeing now. I’ll be taking a look. Freddie was just captivating live…