Review of Cliff Richard: Unforgettable

Introduction

When you start the disc you`re presented with a nice clean menu leading you to a huge choice of Sir Cliff`s music spanning some 40 years. He introduces the different parts of the video and talks a little about how he felt at the time, the adverse press in the case of his musical, "Heathcliff", and the lighter side of his career.

There are many songs here which are familiar to a lot of the `older` generation including Move It, Mistletoe and Wine, Wired for Sound, Saviour`s Day, Miss You Nights, Devil Woman, Daddy`s Home, Some People and a lot more. Some are videos while others are live performances and he shows that he can still perform live just as well as ever, holding the record for 32 sell out shows at the Albert Hall.

Video

This disc is presented with a fullframe 1.33:1 transfer. The newly recorded segments with Cliff are perfect in quality, afterall he`s only sitting down while talking. The quality of the videos themselves are a bix of a mixed bag when it comes to quality with his earliest black & white performances to some of the later colour ones. For the most part though the quality is pretty good and I have no complaints. The menus look good too.

Audio

There`s a choice of DD2.0 or 5.1 to listen to. The 2 channel mix is okay but the enhanced 5.1 sound is better. There`s a clearer dynamic range to be had and the live performances sound better too. It`s a well balanced soundtrack.

Features

This DVD is quite long, over two hours in fact and is presented with an Inroduction, The Early Days, Pop Videos, Live Shows, 40th Anniversary, The Movies, Heathcliff, and Duets. Each part has a few parts of its own too such as Pop Videos which features a selection of eight songs.

The whole disc features a lot of Cliff`s hits from over the last 40 years in the various chapters of the DVD. There aren`t any subtitles, so no drunken karaoke on Christmas Day. Subtitles are almost a must on music DVDs these days! Cliff has recorded up-to-date introductions to the various parts presented here which gives this a more `personal` feel than just a video compilation.

There are also a few movie trailers for Cliff`s earliest films, "The Young Ones", "Wonderful Life" and "Summer Holiday".

Conclusion

Despite all the Cliff jokes that could be had, I quite liked this disc. It helps that I liked some of his pop music, though not some of the more `dancey` stuff and it was nice to hear some of the songs that I`d forgotton. Make of it what you will, my personal favourites are "Wired For Sound", "Devil Woman" and "Miss You Nights". :-)

Who would this disc appeal to then? Fans of his music will appreciate this, the quality of the sound and vision with DVD features make this a well rounded package. Running for over two hours this disc represents great value for money and I firmly recommend it if you like Sir Cliff`s brand of pop music. It has quite a bit of replay value too as I find myself dipping into it to play certain tracks in the background. It`s the ideal DVD collection of his best music so far.