Clifton's first performing job was as a singer with a dance band, but he was fired after a month. He subsequently appeared on several further occasions, including the 2016 show. He made regular appearances on
Crackerjack!. During the 1980s, he appeared on
The Keith Harris Show, and in 1982, Clifton ran the
London Marathon with Oswald the Ostrich. In 2005, Clifton and Oswald appeared in
Peter Kay's and
Tony Christie's music video for the
Comic Relief charity re-release of "
(Is This the Way to) Amarillo". Clifton made his
Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut in 2006 at the Udderbelly venue. Writing in
The Guardian, Brian Logan gave it 3 out of 5 stars and called it an "exercise in retro comedy", but "also unrepentantly funny". Clifton was a contestant on
Series 5 of
The Voice UK, applying under his birth name. He performed "
The Impossible Dream (The Quest)" from
Man of La Mancha, and did not advance past the blind auditions. After a death metal band's song titles were printed on his album cover by mistake, Clifton presented an award at the
Kerrang! Awards in June 2016. In 2018, he starred in
ITV's
Last Laugh in Vegas, a documentary following eight "showbiz legends" as they prepared a show in
Las Vegas. In January 2020, Clifton appeared as a guest on the first episode of the new series of
Crackerjack! on
CBBC. In February that year, he played himself in the first episode of
Meet The Richardsons on
Dave. Within the episode, he is a family friend of
Jon Richardson and teaches him how to operate a monkey puppet similar to his ostrich. Clifton has starred in several
pantomimes, playing the father of
Cinderella at the
Hull New Theatre in 2018 and at
Northampton's
Royal & Derngate in 2019. He has also presented shows on
BBC Radio Sheffield, and
BBC Radio 4. In 2018,
Inside No. 9 titled an episode "
Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room"; while Clifton himself didn't appear in the episode, he was mentioned as part of a key plot point occurring in the titular room. On 10 March 2022, he made an unplanned telephone appearance on the Chris Moyles Show on Radio X, having been referenced by comedian, Jon Richardson, who appeared on the radio show earlier that morning. On 6 January 2026, he the guest star in the final show of Inside Number 9: Stage/Fright at the Hammersmith Apollo. ==Personal life==