Teasing title fails to offer any real revelations into Cilla’s starry life
Cilla: the Lost Tapes
ITV
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IN a week when there has been much talk about the pressures of the showbusiness game, ITV took a timely look at one of the industry’s sharpest operators, Cilla Black.
The late singer’s home movies and taped interviews with a ghost writer were the basis for this hour-long documentary. As Black made clear several times, she was a pioneer in the trade, headlining shows when most women were stuck in the chorus line. “I’m the original girl power,” she said.
Not to be outdone, narrator Sheridan Smith, who played the performer in a TV biopic, introduced the film as “Cilla the trailblazer as you’ve never known her before”.
It was a fresh angle to the familiar story of Cilla’s rise from Cavern Club cloakroom girl to ITV presenting powerhouses of Surprise Surprise and Blind Date.
Cilla was Ant and Dec before there was an Ant and Dec. A millionaire at 25, the tapes showed she certainly lived a starry life of big house, fabulous holidays and lots of showbiz pals, some of whom, including Cliff Richard, Jimmy Tarbuck and Paul O’grady, turned up to pay homage.
Despite the teasing title there was little in the way of revelations, unless you count Ringo Starr asking her to marry him (they agreed it was a joke), and Cilla being the first obviously pregnant woman to be presented to the
Queen (after a Royal Variety Show performance).
Apart from one brief segment about a racy routine, again at a Royal Variety, this was an unashamedly fond look at the singer’s life. We heard time and again about her toughness but there were, alas, no examples given or glimpses of her steeliness in action. One felt sure a man would have crowed about them.