Barbara Ruth Dickson OBE (born 27 September 1947)[1] is a Scottish singer and actress whose hits include "I Know Him So Well" (a chart-topping duet with Elaine Paige), "Answer Me" and "January February".

[2] The Scotsman newspaper has described her as Scotland's best-selling female singer in terms of the numbers of hit chart singles and albums she has achieved in the UK since 1976.

The combination of his writing, the cast (including Antony Sher, Bernard Hill and Trevor Eve, who were unknown at the time) and Dickson's idiosyncratic interpretation of Beatles songs made the show highly successful.

John, Paul, George, Ringo … and Bert also led to her guest residency on The Two Ronnies, which brought Dickson's singing to the attention of more than ten million BBC Television viewers every week.

[7] Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice also spotted Dickson in John, Paul, George, Ringo … and Bert, and invited her to record "Another Suitcase in Another Hall" from their new musical Evita, which became her second hit in 1977.

[8] An abridged version of the song "Best of Friends", sung by Dickson, was used as the closing theme for Andy Robson, an ITV children's television series broadcast during 1982 and 1983.

[citation needed] In 1982, Willy Russell invited Dickson to star in his new musical Blood Brothers in the pivotal role of the mother, Mrs Johnstone.

[9] Starting in 1983, Dickson and her backing band began appearing in musical interludes for the BBC Scotland comedy show Scotch and Wry.

The writer and director Chris Bond created a stage show for Dickson in 1996 called The Seven Ages of Woman, which won her the Liverpool Echo Actress of the Year Award.

A double live CD, Barbara Dickson in Concert, was released in April 2009, and was followed later in the year by her autobiography, A Shirt Box Full of Songs.

Arranged and produced by Troy Donockley, the album included tracks such as "Bridge Over Troubled Water", "Jamie Raeburn" and "The Trees They Do Grow High".

The same year, she presented a series of podcasts, Answer Me Ten... With Barbara Dickson, in which she interviewed several well-known female singers, including Petula Clark, Toyah, Kiki Dee, Kim Wilde and Eddi Reader.

[18] Interviewed for Fern Britton Meets in 2017, Dickson discussed her conversion to Catholicism while living in Richmond during her 30s, and the crisis that she had suffered while appearing in Willy Russell's Blood Brothers 2004 Liverpool stage production.