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[0:00] Tim Rice: Hello, this is Tim Rice.

[0:01] Tim Rice: Welcome to the 10th episode of my podcast, Get Onto My Cloud.

[0:25] Tim Rice: Come on, Pootie Baby, let's move it in a move it.

[0:43] Tim Rice: Let me tell you, baby, it's corrupt.

[0:46] Tim Rice: Move It by Cliff Richard.

[0:48] Tim Rice: His first UK hit in 1958, which has been followed over the past 60 years by over 100 others.

[0:56] Tim Rice: I didn't write that song, but I wish I had.

[0:58] Tim Rice: It was actually written by Ian Samwell, a member of Cliff's backing group, The Drifters, later, of course, The Shadows.

[1:06] Tim Rice: I've been an admirer of Cliff Richard since Move It, although my credentials as a Cliff fan got off to a rocky start.

[1:12] Tim Rice: Move It was initially intended to be the B side of Cliff's cover of a recent American hit by Bobby Helms, entitled Schoolboy Crush.

[1:21] Tim Rice: As such, it was competing with the Bobby Helms original, which I heard on Radio Luxembourg and quite liked.

[1:28] Tim Rice: I was only 13, I hasten to add.

[1:30] Tim Rice: The conventional view then held by teenage record buyers in the UK was that the American original was always superior to the British copy.

[1:38] Tim Rice: So even though I'd heard the unknown Cliff Richard version, I opted to buy Bobby Helms, which in all honesty was probably just better.

[1:47] Tim Rice: Meanwhile, Cliff's record company EMI, initially, at the insistence of his producer, Nori Paramour's daughter Carolyn, realized that they were sitting on a potential winner with Move It.

[1:57] Tim Rice: The B side became the A side, and Move It shot speedily to number two in the UK charts.

[2:02] Tim Rice: Not bought by me, as I had already forked out a month's pocket money on Mr. Helms.

[2:07] Tim Rice: But I bought Cliff's follow-up high class baby, not quite as good as Move It, and nearly everything he's recorded since.

[2:15] Tim Rice: I first met Cliff in 1966 when I was 23 and working in a very junior capacity at EMI Records.

[2:22] Tim Rice: The low rung of the ladder that I occupied was in the legendary Norrie Paramour's office.

[2:28] Tim Rice: Norrie was the company's senior record producer, and Cliff Richard was still his leading recording artist.

[2:33] Tim Rice: I went to many of his sessions at Abbey Road, and although my tasks were generally confined to setting up music stands, labeling tape boxes and getting coffee, I learnt a great deal about the recording studio and about Cliff's consummate professionalism.

[2:47] Tim Rice: I remember Paul McCartney dropping in at one of Cliff's sessions to say hello and feeling a combination of star-struck excitement and abject terror in case one of these musical titans asked for my views on anything, or even for a cup of coffee.

[2:47] Tim Rice: When Andrew Lloyd Webber and I were lucky enough to make our own mark in the record business in 1970 via Jesus Christ Superstar, we often crossed paths with Cliff, and at one point had serious discussions about him taking the lead in a new production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, which, sad to say, did not materialize.

[3:20] Tim Rice: I was nevertheless hopeful that he might record one of our songs one day, or to be more ruthless about it, one of my songs, as by the 1980s, Andrew and I were not working together on any major projects.

[3:32] Tim Rice: By the 1990s, I was still waiting for the first Cliff Richard recording of one of my songs, so I was intrigued when he invited me to dinner with Frank Dunlop, the great theatrical director, who had directed the first professional stage production of Joseph back in 1972.

[3:46] Tim Rice: Virtually every production of Joseph done since 1972 owes a great deal to Frank's version at the Edinburgh Festival that year.

[3:54] Tim Rice: Anyway, I think this dinner must have taken place in late 1991 or early 1992, and when Cliff said that to make up for the total absence of T. Rice works in his CV or resume, he would like me to write an entire show for him, I was more than taken aback.

[4:09] Tim Rice: It was to be based on the immortal novel Wuthering Heights, was to be directed by Frank, and the music would be written by John Farrar.

[4:16] Tim Rice: The adaptation of the Brontë's story would be written by Cliff and Frank, and Heathcliff, rather than Cathy, was to be the central character.

[4:23] Tim Rice: And Cliff himself would play Heathcliff, an ambition he'd had for many years, and indeed had spoken about in various interviews for a long time.

[4:33] Tim Rice: John Farrar's most famous compositions are probably those he wrote for the staggeringly successful film of the musical Grease, notably You're the One That I Want, which was the number one record around the world for John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John.

[4:46] Tim Rice: John is an Australian composer, record producer, and orchestrator who has long been based in Los Angeles.

[4:52] Tim Rice: He was for a while a member of the Shadows, and he wrote and produced several other massive successes for Olivia.

[4:57] Tim Rice: In short, a top bloke creatively, and as I soon discovered, personally.

[5:02] Tim Rice: I left the restaurant that night, having accepted the gig purely on the strength of the team behind Heathcliff.

[5:08] Tim Rice: I had not read Wuthering Heights, although I knew, of course, the superb 1977 Kate Bush song of that title, which I knew would be a tricky, if not impossible, standard to match.

[5:17] Tim Rice: Kate never expanded Wuthering Heights beyond her number one hit single, Did She Know Something We Didn't?

[5:23] Tim Rice: By late 1992, John and I were well into creating the songs for the show, helped by the fact that I was often in LA working on Aladdin and The Lion King.

[5:32] Tim Rice: The plan was for the show to tour arenas around the UK, rather than to kick off in the West End in a more conventional musical theatre setting.

[5:39] Tim Rice: But Cliff would guarantee sellouts in these substantial venues, even though he would obviously not be performing any of his 35-year tally of hits.

[5:47] Tim Rice: One thing we did not have to worry about was advanced bookings.

[5:57] Tim Rice: So the arena dates that had been booked for Heathcliff featured instead a Cliff Richard Greatest Hits Tour, which was inevitably and deservedly an outstanding success.

[6:06] Tim Rice: One of the first songs we did complete was entitled Misunderstood Man.

[6:10] Tim Rice: This song was released as the first single in October 1995, nearly a year before the show itself.

[6:16] Tim Rice: Who was the Misunderstood Man?

[6:18] Tim Rice: Well, of course, for the show, it was Heathcliff.

[6:21] Tim Rice: But some of the lines I wrote could apply to Cliff himself, too.

[6:57] Tim Rice: Now dismissed, rehearsed and trough of meaning that may well knock.

[7:08] Tim Rice: The demon at the story's heart, the glue in the nest, he sold it himself away, which is the reason why you will stay in case he bought us should be tray by whom what is of the facts of the matter.

[7:45] Tim Rice: This is the story, the passion, the time, and the peace all judging the devil in the misunderstood play, the devil in the misunderstood his origins, his way of life, his motives, their own news, no shortage of detractors to where their noisy use a man inspires a thousand lines for love takes his choice, remaining cold in trouble where that's family on the fall.

[8:59] Tim Rice: It is the moon who bears his soul.

[9:03] Tim Rice: I'll give a man of all these of the facts of the matter.

[9:19] Tim Rice: This is the story, the passion of the time and the case.

[9:30] Tim Rice: So judging the case.

[10:30] Tim Rice: Of the ballot.

[10:37] Tim Rice: This is the story of passion.

[10:48] Tim Rice: Sonja Chin.

[10:56] Tim Rice: On this sun was good.

[11:28] Tim Rice: As a longtime friend and colleague of Cliff Richard, I definitely hoped that some listeners would pick up on the fact that Cliff himself has often been misunderstood, even underrated in some areas, despite his phenomenal achievements.

[11:40] Tim Rice: I'm not sure anybody did pick up on that, but thinking of the song's performer as much as of the song's character certainly helped me write it. Plus, of course, John's driving melody. Soon after a misunderstood man's foray into the top 20, a studio album of ten songs from the forthcoming show was released, and five of the songs featured Olivia Newton John in duets with Cliff. This created considerable interest in the show, well beyond Cliff's extensive fan base. The media, of course, delighted in speculating that Cliff Richard, whose image was perceived as polite, Christian, clean living, singer of gentle love ballads, could not possibly portray the brutal and vicious Heathcliff. In the meantime, box office records were broken for first week ticket sales in Birmingham, Edinburgh, Manchester, and Hammersmith in London.

I remember one brilliant headline, I think, in the Sun newspaper, which did a feature on Cliff's physical workouts in preparation for the show, and they called the item Beef Cliff. In the meantime, ticket sales continued to mount. The album sold well, and Cliff took me and his leading lady for the show, Helen Hobson, on a whistle stop helicopter trip, promoting the show at the venues that Heathcliff would grace. And a second single was released. This was a duet between Heathcliff and Kathy in the shapes of Cliff and Olivia. The song was called Had to Be, and I think it's the best one in the score.

[13:23] ♪ Musical number ♪

[14:55] Tim Rice: She's a wrong a fool to herself had to be ever tell me how to live my life.

[15:23] Tim Rice: Tell me who I should love.

[15:36] Tim Rice: Ever tell me what to say I do in the light I will share had to be no one before we get what we deserve and the faith of hustles in take control of your soul had to be but the stock of remains and sustain the echo of the spine for a while content will ourselves have to be one told to ourselves had to be.

[17:17] Tim Rice: Did okay. I do an occasional an evening with Tim Rice and Friends show, usually for some fundraising cause, the cause not being me, unfortunately. Me and three or four singers and a small band, and the song selection is fairly predictable. Argentina, Any Dream Will Do, I Know Him So Well, whole new world, Circle of life, etcetera, which is what people like to hear. But I do occasionally slip in the odd, lesser-known number, and there have been some wonderful versions of Had to Be here and there. It is one of my favourite songs. Anyway, Heathcliff opened in the National Indoor Arena in Birmingham on October the 16th, 1996. Total advance takings were by then eight and a half million pounds. It went down a storm with the fans, but was massacred by the critics who were clearly praying for something they could be rude about, and they were.

Quotes such as withering rather than wothering, living dull, were bravely used later by Cliff's production company in adverts, contrasted with fans' ecstatic comments and box office figures. Helen Hobson as Cathy did get good notices, but the songs and staging barely inspired much comment one way or the other. Cliff himself was simultaneously the show's greatest asset and its greatest problem. The latter because most reviewers and critics refused to separate his real life persona from his portrayal of a violent, often crude and cruel protagonist. The book, fashioned by Cliff and Frank Dunlop, used dialogue directly from the Bronte novel, which clashed stylistically with the lyrics and indeed the music of the score.

The piece fell between the two stools of concert and theatre, with the former winning out. As a Cliff Richard Arena rock performance, inspired by a traditional but complex love story, it hit home wonderfully with the thousands of fans. As something that could have transferred to the West End, not that that was ever the intention, no way, Jose. But Clifford achieved his long held desire to play Heathcliff, and I was honored to have been invited to help. As ever, he gave his all, and his audiences loved it. Had he been a conventional stage music on the West End, I think it would have had to have been a radically different piece. In that situation, there would have been a need for much more to be made of the role of Cathy, a clearer storyline in contemporary language, and a stronger dramatic flow from scene to scene.

What the punters got in the stadia and big halls was a series of table that gave Cliff the chance to do what he did best. And what I got was a chance to work with an outstanding composer in John Farrell, and a true British music legend in Cliff Richard. Even the live album of the entire show sold well. I'll end my Wuthering Tale with a short extract of the Heathcliff Company singing, I do not love you, Isabella. Isabella is played by Sarah Hatherty, who marries Heathcliff after he becomes the owner of Wuthering Heights, despite his obvious lack of love for her.

[19:57] ♪ Musical number: "I Do Not Love You, Isabella" — performed by the Heathcliff Company ♪

[22:52] Tim Rice: Written and presented by Tim Rice and produced by Peter Hobbes.