PLANS by Stirling University to hold the first public screening of a film featuring the pop group Wham! have been shelved after George Michael’s manager refused permission.

The university, which holds a copy of If You Were There, a 90-minute documentary charting Wham!’s 1985 tour of China, was given permission for the screening by Sony Music, Michael’s record company.

However, the showing of the film, which was shot by Lindsay Anderson, the cult director, has been cancelled following an intervention by Andy Stephens, Michael’s manager, who claims that the film is “dreadful” and should never be seen in public.

Anderson, who directed the 1968 classic If . . . , starring Malcolm McDowell, was hired by the managers of Wham!, Jazz Summers and Simon Napier-Bell, to shoot footage of the teen idols’ two-week trip to China, the first made by any western band.

Despite initial approval of the film, which contrasted traditional Chinese life with the gathering excitement surrounding the arrival of Wham! in the Far East, Anderson was ousted from the production 10 days after the rushes were screened in front of Michael and invited guests. To Anderson’s fury, a new version — Wham! in China: Foreign Skies — directed by Strath Hamilton and Andy Morahan replaced his work.

The original film was supposed to be destroyed, but Anderson made a copy before being ordered from the cutting room. Despite 21 years passing since the incident, Michael’s manager last week pulled the plug on the film’s first screening. “It’s a dreadful film,” said Stephens. “It’s a rogue copy that was supposed to have gone away and we don’t want it to be seen in public. It’s 20 years old and it’s rubbish. Why on earth should we allow it to be shown?” Letters and diary entries held in the university’s archive collection, donated after the film maker’s death in 1994, record his growing disgust at the behaviour of Michael, who went on to have a successful solo career following the break-up of Wham!. In an open letter sent to all involved in the project, Anderson claimed that Michael, “the man who signs the cheques”, influenced the final decision to bring in new directors to finish the film, although Anderson’ s efforts had already cost about £1m.

He wrote: “I must admit that I was not prepared for the incredible waste, silliness, lack of conscience, ignorance, lack of grace, lack of scruple, egoism, weakness, duplicity and hypocrisy which have characterised the whole operation.

“Between them the Whammies have destroyed — or suppressed — an enjoyable, informative, entertaining and even at times beautiful film.”

University representatives admitted they were dismayed by the decision to cancel the screening, which, they say, would have shed new light both on the work of Anderson, and the first western pop tour of China. “We want to make the archive as widely available as possible,” said Karl Magee, the university archivist. “We have had a lot of interest in this film because it’s never been seen in public before.”

He added that he could see no reason for the censorship. “It’s hardly an MTV-style video, but as far as I can see it’s not offensive,” he said. “It’s a possibility that it’s about the vanity of those involved.”

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