Gilbert O’Sullivan: Out on His Own, BBC Four | reviews, news & interviews
Gilbert O’Sullivan: Out on His Own, BBC Four
Gilbert O’Sullivan: Out on His Own, BBC Four
The 1970s pop star gives more away than he intended in this documentary

While obviously not as seismic a Top of the Pops moment as Ziggy singing “Starman”, the almost contemporaneous appearance of the flat-capped Gilbert O’Sullivan hunched over his piano as if it were a dying coal fire certainly stuck in my memory as clearly as Bowie’s androgynous space-age carrot-top. Although the flat cap was quickly ditched in favour of casual knitwear and even a hairy chest phase (see pic below), today’s 64-year-old Mr O’Sullivan feels that his fate in the shape of his image was sealed all those decades ago, and he’s been fighting ever since to transcend it.
While obviously not as seismic a Top of the Pops moment as Ziggy singing “Starman”, the almost contemporaneous appearance of the flat-capped Gilbert O’Sullivan hunched over his piano as if it were a dying coal fire certainly stuck in my memory as clearly as Bowie’s androgynous space-age carrot-top. Although the flat cap was quickly ditched in favour of casual knitwear and even a hairy chest phase (see pic below), today’s 64-year-old Mr O’Sullivan feels that his fate in the shape of his image was sealed all those decades ago, and he’s been fighting ever since to transcend it.
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