Cliff Richard to get everyone in a festive mood with special BBC Christmas show

31.10.2022 - 14:05 / completemusicupdate.com

Christmas is going to be extra Christmassy this year, because the BBC has commissioned Cliff Richard to perform a set of his festive classics and more for the yuletide season.The hour-long show will be filmed at St John At Hackney Church with various guests joining in the fun. As well as that, Sara Cox will interview the musician at Abbey Road Studios.Songs likely to be on the setlist include, of course, ‘Mistletoe & Wine’ and ‘Saviour’s Day’ – both of them Christmas number ones – plus ‘Millennium Prayer’, which is more of a new year song, but whatever.”I remember, as though it was yesterday, the three series – each containing thirteen shows – that I did for the BBC in the 70s”, says Cliff, slightly irrelevantly.

“I loved every moment of them! Now I’m really looking forward to the Christmas show that they have asked me to present, with the aid of some friends, this December 2022”.Does he have a Christmas wish though? Let’s ask him. Cliff, do you have a Christmas wish? “My Christmas wish? That you will enjoy our show.

Christmas greetings to you all”.Oh, that’s nice. Kate Phillips, the BBC’s Director Unscripted Content, adds: “We are enormously excited to welcome Sir Cliff Richard to the BBC this Christmas, with his inimitable voice and charm there’s no one better to get everyone into the Christmas spirit”.That’s right, no one.

Not even Santa. But the real Christmas miracle is that this all seems to suggest that Cliff and the Beeb are friends again, after he sued the broadcaster back in 2016 over its news coverage of police arriving at his Berkshire home in 2014.

He eventually won that case in 2018, following a very bitter court battle.So that’s something. Although it’s not a very upbeat, Christmassy way to end this story