HEATHCLIFF, the musical, casts veteran pop star Sir Cliff Richard in the role of the brooding Bronte hero.

And, despite being savaged by the critics, the show seems set to break all records, thanks to the enduring appeal of the perpetually youthful Bachelor Boy.

One of the star's biggest fans is John Southcott, a 54-year-old warehouse manager from Oswaldtwistle.

He has got every LP Cliff has ever made, along with all his videos, most of the books written about him and countless programmes and souvenirs. Unfortunately, his wife Linda is not such a big fan and makes John hide most of his collection away in the loft.

His workmates have also been known to take the Mickey from time to time.

"I had his calendar up on my office wall and someone stuck a dress on it the other day but it doesn't bother me," said John. "I take a lot of stick but I think Cliff's a great guy and I just like his music. I've been a fan since 1959 when I got his first record Move It.

"I've been to hundreds of concerts and I've got all sorts of stuff, including a Cliff Richard clock and a painting."

John intends to see Heathcliff in Edinburgh and hopefully go a further twice to the Manchester shows.

He said: "The critics have slagged it off but you don't know until you've seen it for yourself. I think it will be good because a lot of people have put so much effort into it."

Fellow Cliff Richard Fan Club member Jean Lang, from Rawtenstall, explained Cliff's appeal.

"For a start he's a Christian and so am I," she said. "I'm roughly the same age as him and he is somebody I've always liked.

"I think the critics are terribly out of touch. The money the musical has made already cannot be just from fans alone."

Sandra Hough runs the Manchester branch of the Cliff Richard Fan Club, which has around 500 members, and there are 26 similar clubs throughout the UK.

She said: "We don't call ourselves fans. We call ourselves friends because we don't cause a nuisance. "We did a TV show recently with three so-called fans who lived with cardboard cut-outs. They don't seem to have their own lives. Heathcliff is brilliant. The acting is marvellous and the music is superb.

He never expected the critics to like it. Cliff calls them "the whinging prophets of doom" but when I saw it in Birmingham the whole cast had a standing ovation and came on and off about five times."

While not being die-hard Cliff Richard fans, Kath and Dave Jenkinson, of Belthorn, near Blackburn, were certainly impressed with the show when they went to see it in Edinburgh on a Lancashire Evening Telegraph trip.

"It was fantastic - the best show we've ever seen," they said.

The critics, however, have not been so kind. They have described it as "a wretched show", "an over-amplified £3.5 million monstrosity'' and a "glorified shampoo commercial".

One damning writer observed that the most depressing thing was that "large sections of the audience appeared to love every minute".

In the end, it doesn't matter what the critics say about the goody-two-shoes of pop.

Fans have paid £8.5 million in advance ticket sales for the musical, which will tour for six months to Edinburgh, Manchester and London.

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