By Alison Boshoff
Last updated at 1:31 AM on 17th April 2009
Rehearsals for Michael Jackson's much-trumpeted 50 London comeback-and-farewell concerts have begun in an empty aircraft hangar in Los Angeles fitted out to look like the stage of the O2 Arena.
His dancers are being put through their steps, the musicians are hard at work and usually reliable sources indicate that Michael Jackson has actually shown up - cue a distinct sigh of relief from the concert organisers.
They are hoping that now, with the cancellation of the auction of Jackson memorabilia which was to have taken place next week, the King of Pop will no longer have that, and the lawsuit he had brought to stop it, to distract him.
Fifty extravagant shows starring elephants, a gruelling new dance routine, even a cameo role for his son. But has Jacko taken on too much?
Jackson - who hasn't set foot on stage since a disastrous appearance at the World Music Awards in 2006 when he managed to sing only two lines of We Are The World - was reported yesterday to have told his sister Janet that he felt a huge weight had been lifted from his mind.
'A huge part of my life has been given back to me,' he said. 'A part that should never have been snatched away. It tore me to shreds inside.'
With nothing to stand in the way of preparations for his sell-out This Is It O2 shows, which begin on July 8 and run until February 24, details are beginning to emerge from that closely guarded aircraft hangar.
Jackson has decided on his set list and the show's themes. He's asking for elephants on stage, and a jungle with monkeys and parrots. He also wants to fly like Peter Pan - he's been inspired by new-wave magician Criss Angel - and thinks he should perform a whole number while floating above the stage.
The singer reportedly finds it hard to breathe through his surgically-enhanced nose
In addition, he is asking for a substantial cameo role in the show for his elder son, Prince, who is 12. The precise details of their duet will be finalised later. For now he is very steadily and quietly getting on with the business of working on his dance routines, or so his supporters say.
In this, Jackson is being assisted by choreographer Kenny Ortega, a genial but muscular 58-year-old who was mentored by Gene Kelly, has worked with everyone from Madonna to Cher and is the man behind High School Musical.
It's the dancing which apparently seems to worry Jackson the most, although others claim he ought to worry more about his voice. But for now the singer is obsessed with creating a move to rival the moonwalk, and that is what he and Ortega are concerning themselves with.
The concert promoters, AEG Live, are publicly upbeat about his chances of pulling it off. 'He's 50, but he's going to dance his ass off!' says the group's Randy Phillips excitedly.
But privately the people involved in nannying Jackson back on to stage after an absence of three years say it's like trying to train a host of butterflies to march in time - it's a delicate task, and at times it seems quite hopeless.
'I can't talk to you about how he is, because I will be sacked for sure,' says one. 'But this is not going to be easy.'
Jackson, who affects sunglasses, a thick wig and pink lipstick at all times, apparently seems to be either absent or absent-minded during the meetings he has attended so far. Anything related to business will have him waving his hand and asking his handlers to 'deal with it'.
Jackson's Neverland Ranch in California, another example of his fascination with Peter Pan
Just some of the items owned by Jacko which were to be auctioned off
Although he says he has been working on a new album for three years, and has spent months in studios with young artists such as Will I Am and Ne-Yo, little seems to have been achieved. There is maybe one single which can come out this summer. But it seems unlikely an album will be ready in July - instead, his camp are 'hopeful' of something for the end of this year.
Rumours swirl about the possibility that Jackson is still hooked on the painkiller Demerol, or alcohol, or both, and that this is what is rendering him so slow moving. Some are even going as far as guessing that he may have a lookalike perform dance moves because of his physical frailty and lack of fitness.
A family friend told me this week that he is still troubled by the back injury which led him to spend periods of his 2005 trial for child molesting - which resulted in his acquittal - in a wheelchair and in hospital.
Who, then, can possibly expect this man, who is said to complain that it is hard to breathe through his surgically altered nose, to perform 50 dates of 100 minutes each? Even when those dates are organised so that he never has to do consecutive nights, and even with the support of dozens of beautifully choreographed dancers, will he really be able to manage it?
Jacko at a news conference at the O2 Arena last month
Jackson's family are aghast and say in private that they don't think he can. His mother Katherine felt comfortable with him taking on ten dates, which was the initial plan. But she and the rest of his family were stunned when he seemed to be pressured by the demand for tickets into adding a further 40 shows.
'Michael wants to put up a hell of a big show, but we are all holding our breath,' said a family friend. 'He is going all out, and when you do that it comes with risks. Everyone is concerned about the number of dates.'
His family aren't the only ones who are worried. AEG, which is staking millions on his residency at the O2, cannot get insurance for any more than the first ten dates.
Embarrassingly, no one wants to underwrite the risk of illness or cancellation because it is so substantial, and AEG is now resigned to bearing the risk themselves.
His mental strength is the biggest question of all. Randy Phillips describes him as 'not a confident man', which is quite an understatement. Jackson lives in a bubble, surrounded by staff and seemingly frightened of the real world.
He has a security detail of five, who he insists must protect his children at all times from the threat of abduction.
The O2 Arena in Greenwich, south east London
He also has personal assistants, a tutor and a nanny for his three children, who live with them in their rented home. Most days are spent playing with the children. There is almost no social life beyond an occasional lunch with a family member because Michael usually isn't up to it.
He was destroyed by the sex abuse charges, by the revelations about wine or 'Jesus juice' being served to young boys, and by the description of his stash of pornography.
The controversial U.S. extremist religious organisation Nation of Islam also seems to be providing him with hired muscle once again. They were at his side during the trial and Leonard Mohammed, the son-in-law of Nation of Islam's leader Louis Farrakhan, was his manager for a time.
It seemed his association with them had passed. But his new manager, James Weller, is said to have warned the man who was to have been in charge of next week's auction, Darren Julien, that he would have been in danger from the Nation if he had gone ahead with it.
If the tour is a financial success, the money may still do little to solve his financial problems
Despite these apparent problems, the Jackson camp remains upbeat. Brian Oxman, the family lawyer, told me: 'The bottom line is that Michael has been urged for years by his fans and the people around him who love him to get back out there and perform again. This is what he does. This is his passion. This is what has made him a legend.
'This is only partly about finances - that is a minor factor He is not in any financial difficulties. But he is like the rest of us - earning money is a good thing. Why shouldn't he?'
While Oxman's claims that Jackson isn't doing the concerts for the money may seem hard to believe, it is true that the money on offer, while enormous, is still nowhere near enough to dig him out of his financial black hole.
By last year, he owed at least £178million and had defaulted on his Bank of America loan to the tune of £198,000. He also has to pay Prince Abdullah of Bahrain £4 million in settlement of a lawsuit which the Prince brought, claiming that Jackson had reneged on a recording deal.
The concert should take £1.2million a night in ticket sales, plus a further £300,000 or so from merchandising. Jackson's slice will be about £800,000 a night. Over 50 nights, that gives him £40million - and there may be more if he agrees to do a residency in either Las Vegas or New York.
Those who know Jackson say his real motivation is to show his children what he is capable of.
He seems less concerned with impressing his brothers, however, who had hoped to be a part of the concerts and for there to be a Jackson Five reunion. Michael has not been interested in that idea.
'The brothers are so disappointed,' said a friend. 'I know they hope this becomes a world tour eventually, and they would love to join him on that.'
Nothing is straightforward. Even the question of where he will stay has not been resolved. A 28-bedroom house in Chislehurst, Kent, has been rented. But while Jackson wants his children Prince, Paris Katherine and Prince Michael II (known as Blanket) to have a chance to run around, people close to him say he will end up at one of London's five-star hotels.
Also, he has said that he won't go by helicopter to the Thameside O2 - he hates helicopters - but he is not thrilled by the suggestion of getting there by speedboat either. Nor does the paranoid Jackson like the idea of going by car, because he fears he would become an easy target for terrorists or kidnappers.
It's all exhaustingly unresolved, and you do start to wonder if he will even turn up in the UK come July.
Randy Phillips, naturally, says he must. 'If Mike gets too nervous, I'll throw him over my shoulder and carry him on stage - he's light enough,' he says. Now that would be a spectacle.
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