She was understandably devastated after losing her soul mate, but now, Cilla Black is back on form. She tells Richard Barber about life without Bobby

The lift takes you from the ground to the fifth floor and opens straight on to Cilla Black’s London apartment. Its famous resident is there to receive her visitor, a bottle of bubbly already broken open. It’s three o’clock in the afternoon. But then, Cilla (as we shall see) is something of a party girl. She’s certainly in high spirits today, dressed smartly but casually in oversized pink-and-white-striped shirt, black trousers and patent pumps. The understandably gaunt look that followed the untimely death from cancer of her beloved husband and manager, Bobby Willis, has been replaced by a fuller face. “I’ve got my twinkle back,” she says at one stage and it would be enough to warm the stoniest heart.

Cilla Black is a national treasure. At 64, she’s been in show business for over 45 years, starting out at 17 as a pop ingénue and then moving seamlessly into television, becoming – via Blind Date and Surprise, Surprise! – the most successful female light entertainment presenter this country has ever seen.

Ever the consummate professional, Cilla threw herself into her punishing work schedule, curbing her natural desire to go out on the town. “Anyway, Bobby always reined me in, which was quite right because I was working so hard.” Not anymore, though. Part of this is through choice, part of it because she hasn’t yet found a vehicle interesting enough to tempt her back on to our TV screens.

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