The story behind Bob Geldof's global Live Aid concert to raise money for famine relief in Ethiopia is being made into a TV film, the BBC said today.
Yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of the event, staged mainly in London and Philadelphia, which saw many of the world’s biggest music stars performing to a global television audience of 1.5 billion.
The concert, organised by the Boomtown Rats singer and music promoter Harvey Goldsmith, did much to raise the public and political profile of those suffering from poverty, starvation and disease in Africa.
Filming has already begun in Dublin for the 90-minute drama When Harvey met Bob, which follows the story from the moment Geldof arrived home to find his then girlfriend Paula Yates holding their baby and weeping as she watched television footage from feeding camps in Eritrea.
Geldof - who is being played by Domhnall Gleeson, who stars in the upcoming seventh Harry Potter film - persuaded a host of rock stars to give their name and talents for free to the Band Aid charity Christmas record Do They Know It's Christmas?
But it is on a trip to Ethiopia to ensure the proceeds from the record, which sold millions of copies, reached the starving that Geldof realised more needed to be done and teamed up with Goldsmith to stage a huge televised international charity gig, held simultaneously in London and Philadelphia.
"We were inspired by this story because it has, at its heart, a fantastic relationship that is funny, moving and born out of the real drama of trying to achieve something huge and unprecedented," said Kate Triggs of producers Great Meadow Productions. "It's a film about two men who are prepared to think the unthinkable and achieve the seemingly impossible."
The film, described as "humorous, warm, tension-filled and ultimately deeply moving" was commissioned to mark the 25th anniversary of the concert and will air on RTÉ and BBC in the autumn.