Beverly Knight was reluctant to record a Christmas single.

The 47-year-old star was worried ‘A Christmas Wish’ – the theme to recent movie ‘The Loss Adjuster’ – wouldn’t live up the standards set in the past by the likes of Slade, Wizzard and Sir Elton John, but she changed her mind as soon as she heard the song.

She told Britain’s HELLO! magazine: “When I heard the song, it changed my mind immediately and I thought, ‘This song is fantastic, I’ve got to do it.’

“And I’m thrilled that I did, it’s absolutely brilliant.”

Beverly usually gets home to Wolverhampton to see her mum and extended family over Christmas, but this year she planned for a quiet celebration with her husband James O’Keefe because of the coronavirus pandemic and the risk it would have posed for ‘Pantoland’, the star-studded festive production she was starring in in London until it went into tier 4.

She said before the restrictions change: “I can’t see them because of the risk to the show.

“It will probably be me, my husband and my dog this year – that will be our Christmas.

“I have to keep my bubble and my area really, really tight.”

Though it isn’t a traditional pantomime, Beverley thinks audiences will be impressed by ‘Pantoland’.

She said: “This year we have had zero prep time to actually put together a pantomime because we all thought they weren’t going to happen, so this is a unique creation by the producers. They’ve managed to create this kind of, ‘Here are the panto tropes that we all know and love and that we can all celebrate and we can still have the panto experience.’ “