Sir Cliff Richard will lead the tributes at Cilla Black’s funeral in Liverpool on Thursday, which will also feature readings by Christopher Biggins, Paul O’Grady and Jimmy Tarbuck.
The service will take place at St Mary’s Church, Woolton, where Black married her husband, Bobby Willis in 1969. Bobby died in 1999 from liver and lung cancer.
The funeral will be televised live on ITV, the home of her best loved shows, Blind Date and Surprise Surprise. The Rt Rev Thomas Williams, auxiliary bishop of Liverpool, will officiate at the Catholic funeral mass, but a host of Black’s celebrity friends will take part in the ceremony.
Although the presenter had not lived in Merseyside for many years, her sons decided to hold her funeral in her home city.
The 72-year-old entertainer died on 2 August after hitting her head at her home in Estepona near Marbella in Spain. Postmortem examination details released by Spanish authorities found that she died from a stroke caused by the fall. The City of Liverpool coroner, Andre Rebello, last week recorded a verdict of accidental death and called Black a “daughter of Liverpool”.
Richard – who struck up a friendship with Black when they became neighbours at their holiday homes in Barbados – is due to open the service and will sing Faithful One, from his 2004 album Something’s Goin’ On.
Paying tribute to her last week, he said: “Some people will always be with us and Cilla is one of those people. I will always think of her as outrageous, funny, incredibly gifted but above all full of heart.”
Pantomime star Christopher Biggins will read the book of Wisdom (3:1-9), which begins: “The souls of the virtuous are in the hands of God, no torment shall ever touch them. In the eyes of the unwise, they did appear to die, their going looked like a disaster, their leaving us, like annihilation; but they are in peace.”
After her death, Biggins revealed how Black loved to party until “three in the morning”. Speaking on Good Morning Britain, he said: “She loved dancing, she loved the people. She was a fantastic party-goer and the last to leave. You couldn’t put her in a car to get her home.”
Comedian Tarbuck will read a prayer and Black’s 1964 hit Anyone Who Had A Heart will be played during the communion. The song was written by Burt Bacharach and was originally recorded by Dionne Warwick but Black’s cover version was far more popular. On 7 August 2015, following Black’s death, the single re-entered the charts at number 41.
Talkshow host O’Grady will provide closing remarks before Black is taken to be laid to rest in a private ceremony at Allerton cemetery alongside her parents. As her coffin leaves the church, The Long and Winding Road by her friends the Beatles will be played.
Members of the public are expected to line the streets to greet Black’s funeral cortege. The cars will go down Woolton Road, Wavertree, at its junction with Church Road North, to Blackwood Avenue, Gateacre, and then on to St Mary’s church.
In the order of service, Black’s family thank well wishers for the “many messages of sympathy received at this sad time” and say they are comforted by the support and prayers. They request any donations be given to either Alder Hey Children’s Charity, Liverpool, or Great Ormond Street Children’s Charity, London.
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