Of the other superstars involved in Live Aid, it’s only Midge Ure (a very convincing and, astonishingly, unrelated George Ure) and Margaret Thatcher (Julie Atherton) who get stage time. We’re told (as we’re told a lot of things in O’Farrell’s less than subtle script) that the ordinary people who helped put Live Aid together are the real heroes. The show doesn’t follow that through: we only get to know one of them, Suzanne, who sells lots of copies of Do They Know It’s Christmas. The whole show has this problem, of ideas left half-baked, characters underdeveloped. Always, it returns to Geldof (he swears, did you know).
Just for One Day: The Live Aid musical review: ‘frustratingly shallow’
