Singer George Michael is once again hitting the entertainment headlines after announcing that he will be embarking on a brand new string of arrests later this year; in a 47-incident tour of Europe that will see him accompanied to the station by a symphony orchestra.
‘I felt it was really what I want to do as an artist,’ he told reporters at the Royal Opera House in central London. ‘I am really not interested or excited by repeating former successes, but having said that, falling asleep in a Range Rover whilst spaced out on a heady mix of skunk and Amitriptyline is something you just can’t give up that easily.’
‘Symphonica: The Orchestral ‘Manoeuvres’ in the Dark Tour’ will begin at a smashed-in lamppost in Prague on 22 August and includes 12 dates on mounted pavements in the UK at the end of October. The show then returns to the UK in the run-up to Christmas, with one further date scheduled for Paris next April - pending bail.
The 47-year-old former Wham frontman has also revealed that he will be holding a special charity performance in the gents’ toilets at the Royal Opera House on 6 November in aid of the late Dame Elizabeth Taylor's Aids foundation. ‘It’s going to be spectacular,’ he said. ‘Music, lights, dancing girls and undercover policemen – no expense will be spared. We’re even having the disabled cubicle enlarged so we can fit in the orchestra.’
Despite claiming that his 2010 arrest for driving under the influence would be his last, Michael told reporters how keen he was to begin touring again. ‘I felt very re-energised after my recent troubles – thanks in the main to a series of quickies on Hampstead Heath with a middle-aged van driver from Bracknell. It’ll be a tour-de-force of cottaging and dangerous driving and I’m very much looking forward to it.’
Organisers claim the tour will see Michael perform ‘a carefully chosen selection of his songs’, as well as ‘some of his favourite songs from other artists, some of whom he will then attempt to fellate through a gloryhole.’
