Kate Bush Christmas Special 1979

Christmas 1979 and Kate Bush was flying high. She was still just 20 years old and had reached the top of the charts the previous year with Wuthering Heights and the album it came from ‘The Kick Inside’. She was beautiful, graceful, with a unique voice and personal style, and fused dramatic arts and dance into her performances. And at the end of the decade, on December 28th, Kate starred in her own Christmas TV special on the BBC. This year it was repeated for the first time in years and has proven to be one of the best things in a TV schedule that has been dominated by Soap Operas (snooze!).

Kate performed some of her most famous songs including ‘The Man With The Child In His Eyes’, ‘Them Heavy People’ and ‘December Will Be Magic Again‘. She shows her versatility in the performance of them, from the eerie beauty of ‘The Man With The Child His Eyes’ performed with stunning intensity at a piano, to the drama of The Wedding List, complete with a killer bride, and accompanied by her brother Paddy.

The thing is, that, watching this, it is easy to forget that it is now 40 years old. Kate never had a bad decade style wise, so she looks impeccably stylish throughout, and her songs, which were always a million miles away from the mainstream that in 1979 included Racey, Darts, Boney M and Dr Hook, sound as other worldly, beautiful, and sometimes batshit crazy as they did then. And that is what makes this masterpiece of music television such a treat for Kate fans like me.

If you missed this on Monday night, then the good news is you can still find it on BBC iplayer for the next week or so, I would definitely recommend you download it and immerse yourself in some iconic performances (I have it to watch again in dull miserable January.)

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