The newest addition to our chart-topping roster – the charity record – returns. But it has shapeshifted. Morphed into a form that will terrorise the charts from here until the end of time… The comedy charity record…
Living Doll, by Cliff Richard (his 11th of fourteen #1s) & the Young Ones ft. Hank Marvin
3 weeks, from 23rd March – 13th April 1986
As with most charity records – which tend to be very rooted in their particular time and place – this needs a bit of explaining. ‘The Young Ones’ was a sitcom, about a group of flat-sharing undergraduate students of Scumbag College: Rick, an anarchist; Vyvyan, a psychopathic metalhead; Neil, a hippie; and Mike, the ‘cool’ one. The show’s theme tune was Cliff Richard & The Shadows’ 1962 #1 ‘The Young Ones’ and Rick, played by Rik Mayall, was a proud Cliff fan, despite his anarchist leanings. In-jokes on top of in-jokes…
This one isn’t on Spotify, which actually ends up being in the record’s favour – it works better as a video. As a song, it’s fairly unlistenable. Cliff does a straight, very soporific cover of his 1959 #1, while the four actors prat about over the top. Meanwhile, Hank Marvin emerges from behind a door to perform the solo.
It is undoubtedly hard to write a song that is as funny as it is catchy. And this is not how you do it… ‘The Young Ones’ is a funny programme, and Cliff is Cliff. But they’ve had to paint their anarchic humour in very broad strokes here. There are funny(ish) bits… At one point Vyvyan calls Cliff ‘Shaky’. And they call out the creepy ‘gonna lock her up in a trunk’ line: I still feel that locking girls in trunks is politically unsound… Well I feel sorry for the elephant… (groan)
It reminds me – and I’m not sure how I even remember this song – of ‘I See the Moon’, The Stargazers’ 1954 chart-topper. That also featured voice actors pratting about – in a very proper, pre-rock ‘n’ roll kind of way – over a well-known tune. It also reminds me of just about every other ‘comedy’ record to come: ‘Spirit in the Sky’, ‘Islands in the Stream’, ‘500 Miles’ will all be subjected to the same treatment in the years to come, and that’s just off the top of my head.
This was recorded for the very first Comic Relief (AKA Red Nose Day), a BBC charity telethon. Like Band Aid, it was set up in response to the famine in Ethiopia and has since gone on to raise 1.4 billion pounds for charity over the last thirty years. For all the musical chaos it has unleashed, it has undoubtedly done a lot of good for the world. Four minutes of Cliff, and Adrian Edmondson bashing everyone on the head with a mallet, is perhaps a small price to pay…
The UK Number Ones Blog 
I bought this. It was for charity and I love The Young Ones, this was their goodbye as a team sadly but there was still Bottom to come at least. And The New Statesman. Both fab sitcoms in very different ways. Its a shame Cliff topped with this song again though, never much of a fan of it and he had some of his best material in the 7 years since his last number one. No Wired For Sound. Or carrie. Or suddenly. Or all i ask of you. Or even his Phil Everley duet would have been worthy. Hey ho. Theres much worse to come, annoyingly, despite good tracks like Some People coming out instead ofvthe bloody xmas songs… : )
That’s very true. I will probably look back on this fondly when we reach Cliff’s final #1… I’m shuddering at the very thought : (
It looks like a funny show! Cliff wasn’t bad but he looked kinda bored…maybe that is just him
It is a very funny show, but the humour here feels diluted. Which makes sense, they wanted to sell the record and raise money…
I would like to see the show. Yea they softened it for old Cliff’s song.
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