Pop’s No. 1 chameleon wasn’t Bowie — it’s good old Sir Cliff!
RERUNS OF THE NIGHT: As the Jeremy Thorpe story A Very English Scandal replayed on BBC4, the superb Liar with Ioan Gruffudd and Joanne Froggatt restarted on ITV3. There’s no doubt about it, you get a better class of repeat at this time of year.
Cliff’s a perennial. Never changes, the Peter Pan of Pop, just the same as he was in the fifties, etc. so the real surprise of Sir Cliff Richard: 60 Years In Public And In Private ( iTV) was to realise just how often Britain’s original rock’n’roller has reinvented himself.
from the moment clean- cut Harry Webb changed his name and shook his hips to Move it, with a kiss curl and an Elvis sneer, he has turned chameleon more often than David Bowie.
Christian rocker, family entertainer, American idol, West End star, Christmas balladeer and now pop’s elder statesman: that’s quite a repertoire.
This frank documentary warned at the start that little would be revealed. ‘i quite like the word “enigma”,’ Cliff said. ‘i don’t see why people should know everything about you.’
in fact, he held little back. His longtime companion John McElynn was introduced, with the caption ‘close friend’, when the former Catholic priest could easily have remained in the background.
Cliff talked movingly about his late mother Dorothy’s dementia, and how she could recognise his public persona but not her own son: she used to call him ‘that Cliff Richard’ to his face.
His favourite dream, he added, was one where his father Rodger, who died 50 years ago, was still alive: ‘i haven’t had that dream in a long time,’ he added wistfully.
All this was said as he showed the cameras round his private retreat, a villa and 30-acre estate on the Algarve in Portugal.
This doesn’t seem like the behaviour of a secretive man. But it is the reaction of a naturally open man who has been badly wounded by people he trusted.
four years ago the BBC named him as the focus of a historic sex abuse inquiry, and streamed live footage of a police raid on his home: it was the most public and flagrant trial by television this country has ever seen. All the allegations were later proved baseless.
Cliff is still traumatised by the betrayal. As he pointed out, BBC staff had worked closely with him for more than half a century.
if there had ever been a breath of scandal about him, people at Broadcasting House would have known.
Even now, he’s too polite to point out how many executives must have heard rumours about paedophiles Jimmy savile, Rolf Harris and others, and done nothing. The Corporation’s hypocrisy is staggering.
famous friends who have stood by him throughout paid tribute. What the show lacked was a proper assessment of his music.
in all pop history, only Paul McCartney can rival him for sheer volume of lightweight, hummable hits. in time, all the nastiness of the false claims will be a footnote, but the songs will remain.
if ladies of a certain age often love Cliff, grannies everywhere adore Nadiya Hussain. The Bake Off star, discovering the places where her ancestors lived in Nadiya’s Asian Odyssey (BBC1), was petted and patted across half the continent.
in Nepal, an elderly farmer’s wife couldn’t stop cooing and stroking Nadiya’s face as she quizzed her about her husband and children. if the cook hadn’t been happily married before she set off on her adventure, village matchmakers would have snapped her up for an instant wedding to a local lad.
This was an inconsequential travelogue, in which the presenter tried her hand at pottery and kung fu before cooking pakora, buffalo kebabs and other local delicacies.
We learned little, except that Britain isn’t the only nation that loves Nadiya.