The Secret Policeman's Third Ball

Victims of their own success in recruiting stars to appear at fund-raisers, Amnesty took a six-year sabbatical from producing benefit shows in the mid-1980s as a multitude of other good causes staged charity concerts that took the limelight. Amnesty returned in 1987 with refreshed zeal. A new generation of British comedians took up the Amnesty mantle, including Robbie Coltrane, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie and the Spitting Image puppets. On the musical side, Amnesty show veteran Bob Geldof was joined by several newcomers including Kate Bush, David Gilmour, Joan Armatrading and Duran Duran, as well as three musicians who had recently performed for Amnesty in the USA: Peter Gabriel, Lou Reed and Jackson Browne. The two evenings of comedy and two separate nights of music at the London Palladium in March 1987 were subsequently fused into one TV special -- and the Ball continued rolling