20-year-old singer Priscilla White, who would later change it to the stage name Cilla Black, caught the attention of John Lennon when she performed at Liverpool's Cavern Club. He convinced Beatles manager Brian Epstein to audition her, and he subsequently signed her as a client. She would go on to great success on the British chart during the 1960s, having three albums reach the Top 10 on the British chart and scoring two #1 singles and 9 more that hit the Top 10. Her musical career would fizzle out in the early 70s, but Black would soon launch her successful second career, becoming one of the most popular TV hosts on British TV, while also maintaining her singing career, albeit mostly in clubs and cabarets. In short, she is exactly the type of performer who, had she been American or had earned success in America, would have probably gotten at least one, and possibly a series of Christmas specials in the 70s and 80s. As it turned out, being based in Britain didn't prevent her from having one, anyway.
Cilla Black's Christmas, from 1983, is a good guide to the difference between a mid-range performer having a special on American network TV and a mid-range performer having a special on British TV. It adopts the familiar theme of the audience just dropping in on the host at their home, which of course is simply a TV set someplace. In this special's case, Black's "house" consists of a large living room with a staircase to nowhere in the back (sadly, no one goes up or down the stairs at any point), as well as a front yard that at no point makes you feel like said yard is actually outside.
The show's first segment is probably its most notorious, as it achieved some viral success a few years ago. Black emerges from behind a Christmas tree on the living room set, wearing a shiny silvery number, and launches into, of all things, Lionel Richie's then-recent smash "All Night Long", a song that is in no way Christmassy. We then see a long shot of the living room and discover it is filled with kids, ranging in age from pre-teen to older teenagers, all but one of whom appear to be boys, and all of whom are "dancing" in a way that is very Charlie Brown Christmas-esque. Apparently, they were popping and locking, popular in British school yards at the time, but 40 years later they look totally absurd. Weirdly, right after singing "We're gonna have a party/all night long", she opens the front door and all the kids (one of whom grew up to be a prominent star of British soaps) pop and lock themselves out of the house, never to be seen again in the special.
Nothing in the rest of the special comes close to the cheesy goodness of that opening, but it is still a cheesy good time, even if there is the definite sense that to truly appreciate it, you needed to actually be in England circa 1983. After getting rid of her underaged guests, she returns and banters to the audience, mostly telling jokes about her young sons, some of which are mildly creepy ("what do you get a 13-year-old boy for Christmas, apart from a 13-year-old girl?"). Those pale in comparison when her first adult guest, actor and comedian Frankie Howerd, who mostly does tells worse off-color jokes (such as holding a wine bottle at crotch level, promising a "big bang" when it's opened, looking chagrined when nothing happens, and blaming "cold weather") during his extended time on TV. This concludes with the two singing (well, he spoke-sang) a melody of Christmas songs).
After that, she goes and greets her first guests that Americans in 2024 might have heard of--the Bee Gees. And, as evidence of how a special shot and airing only in Britain differs from an American special, instead of the band showing up in studio, she has to talk to them via satellite from Miami. For some reason, they all appear to be crammed into a tiny room with their wives and kids, where they sing "Silent Night".
After the first commercial break (18 minutes in--another difference between British and American shows), we have our first costume change, as Cilla comes onto the porch to greet a troupe of carolers wearing a shiny red dress and a fur coat, where they all sing a number with fake snowing falling all around. She then goes back inside for her second satellite interview, with George Benson in New York, who, like the Bee Gees, brought along his young son, who seems very confused with Cilla starts talking to him despite not having an earpiece. He then sings a (non-Christmas) song from his new album.
We then shift to a pre-taped segment, probably the second-most-ridiculous part of the special, where Black dresses in different outfits to try to ape the song-and-dance stylings of Carman Miranda, Judy Garland, and Fred and Ginger. Black is a decent-enough singer and dancer, but doesn't have anywhere close to the talent of Garland and Astaire and Rogers, but even so, those segments are at least tolerable. The Miranda segment, in which she sings with a vaguely Hispanic accent and dances around with a tiny Christmas tree on her head, though...on second thought, that may actually top the pop'n'locking tweens as the most ridiculous part of the special.
The final segment begins with Black, now wearing an all-black number with a feathered top, singing a couple of songs in the style of Gracie Fields, a then-recently deceased British music hall star. We then get our third and final satellite hookup from the US, this time Los Angeles, where she banters with Julio Iglesias, who couldn't look more checked out on the proceedings if he tried (he also doesn't show up with any of his kids, so sorry for those of you who were hoping for a glimpse of 8-year-old Enrique). He sings "La Paloma", a traditional Spanish song that also doesn't seem to have anything to do with Christmas.
The special comes to a close with Black's husband Bobby showing up, who brings in an entire studioful of guest stars, all of whom are presumably famous British entertainers of the era (Frankie Howerd showed up again, but I didn't recognize any of the other names from the closing credits. For whatever reason, the special is not in IMDB, so I can't quickly see any of these people's other credits). They all sing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas", and then, Laugh-In style, go around the room telling (or, in a couple of cases, barely audibly mumbling while staring intently at the cue cards) lame jokes to each other. That's a good enough reason for Black to rush out of her own party and into the front yard to sing one final song and end the special.
Black would continue to appear on a variety of shows as a guest or host, as well as engage in some singing engagements, until her death in 2015. Shortly after her death, her Best Of album would become her first #1 record. As for Cilla Black's Christmas, it remains a supremely ridiculous, but moderately entertaining, time capsule, particularly for people of a certain age from Britain. Indeed, if Black had hit it big in America, I could see a version of this airing that Christmas on one of the networks, with all the guests appearing live and in person and second-tier sitcom and soap stars from whatever network was airing the thing telling those bad jokes during the final segment.
Next time: 1930s nostalgia for the kids of 1979.
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