Cliff Richard turned 86 two weeks ago and is not only still a fixture of British entertainment but, with his inclusion on the soundtrack for Grand Theft Auto VI and a new covers album called Only Number Ones, is also perhaps more current in autumn 2026 than he has been for some time.
Anyway, with all this in mind, The Times gatecrashed a Cliff Q&A evening in Kingston Upon Thames, and heard some revealing nuggets from Britain’s first rock n’ roll star.
We’ve long known that Cliff has always been weirdly competitive with The Beatles. In the early 1960s, they very much usurped him as the leaders of UK pop, but Richard is still wondering if he might have had more hits than the Fab Four "because I have been singing longer than them."
"And what’s more, I’m still alive!” he says, before adding, “But only just.”
He then recalls a moment in early 1963 when he met the band at a party at Bruce Welch (of The Shadows') house. “Like every party, everybody ended up in the kitchen. It was me, Bruce, Hank Marvin and the Beatles, in the kitchen. We said, ‘What is your next single?’ They looked at each other, shrugged, but Bruce had a guitar so he gave it to George and said, ‘Sing it.’”
So, Harrison started singing the now-familiar opening to From Me To You. “And I said, ‘Oh hell.’” remembers Cliff, as he realised that Paul and John had come up with another hit.
The Kingston show is Richard's only live event this year, but he is still very much active and is planning a radical new direction for his next release, taking inspiration from a reggae song based on the Psalms that someone sent to him. “The Lord is my shepherd!" he exclaims. "I have a whole new life coming up. Because I’m learning… reggae!”
The mind boggles.
Touchingly, Cliff doesn’t seem to have a clue what Grand Theft Auto is, despite his 1976 hit Devil Woman being in the trailer and (presumably) on the soundtrack. “I was told this happened!” he says. “My nephew, who has two boys, said they came screaming to him, ‘Dad, it’s Uncle Cliff!’ They didn’t realise I could sing like that. The show is a game show, isn’t it, really? One of the biggest on TV?”
Not quite, but Richard is clearly glad to be featured on it. “So,” he says, “people will no longer just say, ‘Oh, Cliff Richard is from the past.’ Because I am, but that past is what makes everything what it is today.”
