A lorra, lorra fun

Big night out with Cilla and Millicent was just fab.

I certainly enjoyed the Cill and Mill show, with Cilla Black and Millicent Martin. The three of us met up and had a great night out last week as I showed them the sights of La-La Land.

Millicent is 79 and Cilla has just celebrated her 70th birthday, but neither seem to be slowing down.

Of course I couldn’t miss the opportunity to quiz them on their showbiz past and the pair of them told me some great stories.

Millicent has been a multi-talented stalwart of our screens for decades. She first shot to fame in the 1950s as the resident singer of topical songs on That Was The Week That Was.

She’s also a fine comedian and actress. Younger readers may remember her as the battle-axe of a mother who regularly appeared in one of my favourite sitcoms, Frasier.

Her friendship with Cilla goes back a long way nearly half a century, in fact.

Millie told me how they were both appearing in the Royal Variety Performance together back in 1964. She taught the nervous Cilla how to curtsey properly and gave her advice on what to say when the Queen approached. She said: “Don’t worry, the Queen will have never heard of you so don’t be offended!”

Cilla thought it would be odd if Her Majesty hadn’t, as the show was taking place at the London Palladium where Cilla was actually performing in her own show for the season. In fact, her name was in lights outside the theatre, and there were 30-foot high posters of her all over the place.

Of course, when Her Maj got to Cilla she said: “And what are you doing at the moment?”

The night was full of smashing stories and wonderful names.

Cilla talked about how she got started in the cloakroom of the Cavern Club in Liverpool. Her impromptu performances impressed the other entertainers including young men called John, Paul, George and Ringo.

The Beatles helped Cilla get her big break, but they almost scuppered her career first! They’d agreed to play the backing music during her audition. How could you fail with the Fab Four behind you?

Unfortunately, they played the song Summertime in a different key to that which Cilla was used to, and it sounded awful. She was rejected, despite them begging record bosses to give her another chance.

Thankfully Cilla went on to have a successful career Paul McCartney even said her interpretation of The Long And Winding Road was how he’d intended the song to be sung.

Cilla mentioned that it was amazing that The Beatles had only ever met Elvis once. She said that when Ringo came home he told her: “Good news, your record You’re My World is No. 21 on Elvis’s jukebox!”