Cilla: The musical
Late star’s final dream coming true
IT’S no Surprise, Surprise... a musical on the life of the late, great Cilla Black is set to be a West End smash.
The project is the last one the superstar gave her blessing to before she died in 2015, aged 72.
Cilla, The Musical, will open in her beloved Liverpool in the autumn before a national tour – and London dates are expected to follow.
It is based on the 2014 TV drama starring Sheridan Smith.
Cilla’s son, Robert Willis, said: “It’s the last big connection that I have with her. I want to do it for her. It was the last project she wanted to see happen.
“Once the show had gone out on television, we talked to her about the possibility of doing a stage version. When there was such a great reaction, she was touched. I was really grateful that she experienced that before she died.” Writer Jeff Pope has adapted his TV screenplay for the theatre. The production will explore Cilla’s early life as a singer and how she became a star with the help of her future husband Bobby Willis and will end just before she became the highest-paid presenter on TV with shows such as Blind Date and Surprise, Surprise. It will open at the Liverpool Empire on September 7. Robert added: “It was a theatre my mother loved. “Before she became well known, she would wait by the stage door and ask for autographs.”