THE great-nephew of Cilla Black, who is vying for a place on The Voice on BBC1 tonight, hopes to keep success in the family by releasing an album of covers of her hits later this year.

Tobias Robertson, 22, from Newport, South Wales, has chosen not to audition with one of the national treasure’s famous songs, but will attempt to charm the judges with Randy Newman’s You’ve Got A Friend, also known as the theme song to Disney’s Toy Story.

His audition was filmed in September, just a month after Black died of a stroke at her villa in Spain, and he said that the proximity to her death would have made one of her songs too much for his family to handle.

“The audition was quite close to when she passed away, “ he said, “so I didn’t really want to go down that route, especially as my mum was there to watch and I know she would have burst into tears if I’ve started to sing a Cilla one.”

However, he would like to honour her by recording his take on her hits, which include Anyone Who Has A Heart, Alfie and You’re My World.

Even though he only met the Blind Date host once in his life, Robertson had a lifetime of inspiration to take with him as he stepped in front of the coaches’ red chairs.

They met at the funeral of his grandfather - Black’s brother George - in 2010, where his mum mentioned to her that Robertson was pursuing a music career.

“Cilla said to me, ‘You just need to carry on. If you want to do something and there’s nothing else you want to do, keep going for it no matter what.’ 

"So I always think of that.”

He continued: “It’s inspiring to have her, a blood relative who came from the same financial and cultural background as I do and she managed to achieve those things. Even though it’s in a different era, I still feel like it’s possible to actually achieve what you want to achieve, because she did it, so why can’t I?”