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| After a year's sabbatical and his well-publicised 60th birthday celebrations when he hired the luxurious yacht Sea Goddess for a jaunt with friends including Sue Barker and Olivia Newton-John; women he has been romantically linked with - on the French Riviera, Cliff Richard is looking fresh, invigorated and sickeningly healthy. “I take that as a fantastic compliment, I haven’t exercised for ages,” he says, shaking his head. And although he has not yet had cosmetic surgery he would consider it, but only because he is a performer in the public eve. The word retirement does not enter his vocabulary. Why should it? The new single - his 128th - is about to make him, perhaps, the first artist to have had a hit in six consecutive decades. So is another Christmas number one on us way? |
The Sea Goddess |
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| “Who knows? You never aim that high, then you will not be disappointed if it doesn’t happen. And without airplay it is difficult to climb the charts. But I have dealt with that problem and accepted it.” He is referring to his last single, Millennium Prayer, which made the top spot in Christmas l999) and, more poignantly, was the first British number one for the 21St century. But before the celebrations, rock and roll’s great survivor had a fight on his hands. For the first time in his career he found he was not on the Radio 1 and 2 play-lists. And the reason for their arrogant refusal... ageism. Peter Pan had come of age. The thing was, no-one had told Cliff Richard. So the scene was set. The Captain Hook character was the “ginger whiz’ and TV’s man of the moment, Chris Evans. He started the ageist ball rolling on his Friday evening live show, TFI Friday, on which for no particular reason he turned the heat on and conducted an unnecessarily belligerent interview. | ||
| A lesser person might have buckled under the spotlight of the young in-crowd show, but not Sir Cliff. No-one was going to push him around, his steel had been forged at an early age. When his parents moved from India to England. In the days when he was Harry Roger Webb, he was bullied at school but fought back and has continued to do so in his career; so he was well prepared to make a stand again. Evans went on to air his views on his radio breakfast show and encouraged other DJs not to play Millennium Prayer. Cliff went on to achieve another massive number one hit. | ||
| But what was the reason for such antagonistic criticism? | ||
| I am still not sure about Evans. His whole career was built oil an aggressive pattern of ‘laddishness’ and a crass and crappy style of interviewing. He thought (Cliff assumes a rough accent) ‘I can go where I like, I can do anything I want.’ I understand not everyone likes my records, why should they? I pick and choose, too, huh if I dislike someone’s music I do not dislike them personally". | ||
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