Freddie Mercury - A Kind Of Magic / Magic Remixed

 

Freddie Mercury - A Kind Of Magic : first shown on ITV1 on 12 September 2006, length 45 minutes
Freddie Mercury - Magic Remixed : first shown on ITV4 on 15 September 2006, length 60 minutes



Produced by Matt Cain
Executive producers Melvyn Bragg and Gillian Greenwood
Narrated by Craig Kelly


These are two programmes which take Freddie's 18 years of musical creativity, cast most of it aside, and instead look at his sexuality and how it allegedly influenced everything he ever did. They are essentially the same programme, but 'Magic Remixed' is a longer version, with some additional footage and interviews. Unfortunately, they never made 'Magic Edited' which would have been a much better alternative.

It features new interviews with Roger Taylor, Freddie's mum and sister Jer Bulsara and Kashmira Cooke, Montserrat Caballe, his longterm boyfriend Jim Hutton, friends Peter Straker, David Evans, David Wigg, his personal assistant Peter Freestone, and other people including his schoolfriend Zahid Abrar, Mike Myers, Robbie Williams and McFly. It also features interviews with Time Out journalist Alkarim Javani, who takes every opportunity to moan about how selfish Freddie was not to reveal his sexuality earlier.

Altogether this is a very poor programme, which concentrates on Freddie's sexuality and illness rather than his musical output. After the programme was shown, Brian was publically critical of it (and himself had no involvement in it). Many of the people involved would probably not have contributed if they knew the overall content.

 

Part One : General overview

Part Two : early life in Zanzibar and India, travelling to England, his sexuality, parties and drugs

Part Three : Freddie's home life, illness and death

Part Four : how Queen music lives on, and how Freddie's career may have continued had he lived on