That Piers Morgan, he’s so hot right now. It’s hard not to watch ITV these days without his smug face beaming out from exotic locations in a naff travelogue or as he patronises contestants on a rubbish talent shows that serves only to see if he can out-ego Simon Cowell. Or, as with this affair, as he rubs shoulders with his celebrity pals in a series of in-depth, one-to-one interviews, the latest being a chin-wag with veteran pop icon and Christmas singles chart botherer Cliff Richard.
When Piers Met Sir Cliff in Barbados
Okay for transparency’s sake this review was written about a repeat showing, given that this was originally on ITV1 on September 26, then again that shouldn’t change opinion. Basically this repeat acts as a warm up to a new series of his Life Stories series where the first guest is scouse singer and TV presenter Cilla Black (who, co-incidentally, made an appearance here as a talking head).
Anywho, When Piers Met Sir Cliff opened with the host driving around in a flash sports car and wearing a pristine white suit and designer sunglasses in the sunny isle of Barbados. Although there were groans of this being a vehicle for Morgan to show off he actually got down the interview rather quickly (barring the obviously set-up sequence where he passed through security).
Piers Morgan vs Cliff Richard at Tennis
It’s standard stuff really bringing up his strong Christian beliefs, his squeaky clean image, the bachelor lifestyle and his long career. When asked he says that ‘Devil Woman’ is best work and this immediately leads on to the backlash suffered by ‘Millennium Prayer’, prompting Sir Cliff to complain about the lack of radio play he receives these days. Morgan for once makes a good point saying that this shouldn’t matter to him as it’s only his fans that matter.
There was also the mention of his love of tennis – and pleasingly no clips of his impromptu performance during a rain break at Wimbledon – and Sir Piers, sorry, Moron suggests a game, only to lose in spectacular fashion. But Cliff’s message to Gordon Ramsey, who criticised a wine he was involved in producing, afterwards was genuinely funny.
Cliff Richard’s Childhood Home
Following the fun in the sun they flew over to Sir Cliff’s childhood home in Cheshunt where he lived after his family moved to England to India. And he gets points for not being over-sentimental and teary when discussing the death of his father, he just gave a dignified response about how it affected his transition to music megastar.
Although Morgan has been had a long and varied career in journalism on camera his approach to presenting is a bit wooden, it’s as if he’s trying to force a persona that’s all a little fake. At one point he tried to make a joke about how he appears to look older than the 69-year-old Cliff but this just gave everyone the opportunity to see just how orange Moron has become.
The problem mainly was that When Piers Met Sir Cliff pushed the hour mark and raced through his story, pausing only to muse on the facts most people are familiar with anyway. Then again Sir Cliff did avoid the issue about his sex life despite Morgan’s persistent questioning, which was perhaps the issue viewers would want closure on. Regardless of that omission this wasn’t half bad and it was nice to see that Piers didn’t let his ego take over.
 |
