Sir Bob Geldof

At BFI Southbank, in the context of a TV festival leading up to the centennial of the BBC, Alan Yentob engages Bob Geldof in a wide-ranging discussion of the personal, musical, technological and political events that comprise the backstory of a defining moment in BBC history – the global TV event created by the Live Aid Concert of 1985.

Galvanised by a BBC News report by Michael Buerk, which focused on a humanitarian crisis of ‘biblical proportions' as millions starved in Ethiopia, Geldof reveals new details about how luck, serendipity and ferocious willpower coalesced and uniquely brought together for a common cause many of the world's most acclaimed musicians.

From his awestruck encounters with the likes of Quincy Jones, Willie Nelson, Bruce Springsteen and many other cultural titans, to lunch with presidents and meetings with the heads of spy agencies, Geldof reveals how a network of global satellites, from broadcasters, industry and governments, were enlisted in the cause of one of the most widely watched events in human history.