Freddie Mercury died 30 years ago this week. It is one of those news events that simultaneously feels both very long ago and as if it happened just the other day. To mark the anniversary, BBC Two laid on a Saturday-night triple-bill, beginning with a compilation of Queen performances and ending with their 1975 concert at London’s Hammersmith Odeon. But the jewel was Freddie Mercury: The Final Act, and what a wonderful tribute piece it turned out to be. 

Some people think of Queen as a bit silly and overblown. But even they would have to agree that Mercury was one of the great showmen. The documentary began with footage of the star on stage at Wembley Stadium in 1986. He was magnificent.

 At the end of that tour, though, Mercury told his bandmates that there would be no more live shows. A year later, he told journalist David Wigg (a friend, so the secret went no further) that he had been diagnosed with HIV. The film covered these final years, with bandmates Brian May and Roger Taylor speaking frankly and with fierce affection about Mercury. 

This was a period when it was ok for a tabloid newspaper to front up a celebrity in an airport, demanding to know if they had Aids; as Mercury lay dying, journalists thronged outside his home. “I think I tried to run somebody over and failed,” Taylor recalled. And there was David Blunkett, on television, blaming Mercury’s death on his “unacceptable lifestyle”.

 Mercury was never openly gay, in the sense that he shared details of his relationships. But, as May said, it wasn’t exactly hidden. The NME asked the singer if he was gay. “As a daffodil, dear,” was the reply. But homophobia was so rife that the video for I Want to Break Free – a glorious pastiche of Coronation Street, with the band members in drag – barely got any play in the US.