Ken Dodd
Sir Kenneth Arthur Dodd was an English comedian, actor and singer. He was described as "the last great music hall entertainer" and was primarily known for his live stand-up performances. As a singer he sold more than 100 million records.
A lifelong resident of the Knotty Ash neighbourhood of Liverpool, Dodd started his career as an entertainer in the mid-1950s. His performances included rapid and incessant delivery of often surreal jokes, and would run for several hours, frequently past midnight. His verbal and physical comedy was supplemented by his red, white, and blue "tickling stick" prop, but these colours could change for occasions such as St Patrick's Day, when he would choose a green, white and orange pair. He often introduced the sticks with his characteristic upbeat greeting of "How tickled I am!" He interspersed comedy with songs, both serious and humorous, and with his original speciality, ventriloquism. He had several hit singles, primarily as a ballad singer in the 1960s, and occasionally appeared in dramatic roles. He performed on radio and television and popularised the characters the Diddy Men.
Dodd was knighted in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to entertainment and charity. His stage career lasted for over 60 years, and he continued to perform until the end of 2017. He died on 11 March 2018, at the age of 90.
Early life
Dodd was born on 8 November 1927 in a former farmhouse in Knotty Ash, a suburb of Liverpool, to Arthur Dodd and Sarah. He had an older brother, William and a younger sister, June. He went to the Knotty Ash School, and sang in the local church choir of St John's Church, Knotty Ash. He was to live in Knotty Ash all his life, dying in the house in which he was born, and often referred to the area—as well as its mythical "jam butty mines" and "black pudding plantations"—in his act. During the Second World War he was evacuated with his school to Shrewsbury, where he attended the Priory Grammar School for Boys. He was also evacuated to the village of Penmachno, near Betws y Coed, where he attended the local village school and learnt Welsh.He then attended Holt High School, a grammar school in Childwall, Liverpool, but left at the age of 14 to work for his father, a coal merchant. Around this time he became interested in show business after seeing an advert in a comic: "Fool your teachers, amaze your friends—send 6d in stamps and become a ventriloquist!" and sending off for the book. Not long after, his father bought him a ventriloquist's dummy and Ken called it Charlie Brown. He started entertaining at the local orphanage, then at various other local community functions. His distinctive buck teeth were the result of a cycling accident after trying to ride a bicycle with his eyes closed. Aged 18, he began working as a travelling salesman, and used his work van to travel to comedy clubs in the evenings.
Early career
Before becoming a full-time professional performer, mostly on stage, his first known appearance on radio was in Variety Fanfare made by the BBC in Manchester in 1950–1952.He said he gained his big break at age 26 when, in September 1954, he made his professional show-business debut as Professor Yaffle Chucklebutty, Operatic Tenor and Sausage Knotter at the Nottingham Empire. He later said, "Well at least they didn't boo me off".
He continued to tour variety theatres up and down the UK, and in 1955 he appeared at Blackpool, where, in the following year, he had a part in Let's Have Fun. His performance at the Central Pier was part of a comedy revue with Jimmy James and Company. Also on the same bill were Jimmy Clitheroe and Roy Castle. Dodd first gained top billing at Blackpool in 1958.
Comedy
Dodd was described as "the last great music hall entertainer". His stand-up comedy style was fast and relied on the rapid delivery of one-liner jokes. He said that his comic influences included other Liverpool comedians like Arthur Askey, Robb Wilton, Tommy Handley and the "cheeky chappy" from Brighton, Max Miller.In a radio interview in 2002 he recalled how he was very happy to meet Max Miller while they were performing on the same radio show recorded live at Hulme Hippodrome saying: “I once had the honour of being on the same bill, on the radio show as Max Miller, ‘the' Max Miller, the man, the grand-daddy of all comedians, was on that bill and I was on with Max Miller and he was a lovely man. Very happy days, the Hulme Hippodrome.”
He interspersed the comedy with occasional songs, both serious and humorous, in an incongruously fine light baritone voice, and with his original speciality, ventriloquism. Part of his stage act featured the Diddy Men. At first an unseen joke conceived as part of Dodd's imagination, they later appeared on stage, usually played by children or puppets.
Dodd worked mainly as a solo comedian, including in a number of eponymous television and radio shows and made fifteen appearances on BBC TV's music hall revival show, The Good Old Days. Although he enjoyed making people laugh, he was also a serious student of comedy and history, and was interested in Sigmund Freud and Henri Bergson's analysis of humour. Occasionally, he appeared in dramatic roles, including Malvolio in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night on stage in Liverpool in 1971; on television in the cameo role of 'The Tollmaster' in the 1987 Doctor Who story Delta and the Bannermen; as Yorick in Kenneth Branagh's film version of Shakespeare's Hamlet in 1996; and as Mr. Mouse in the 1999 television movie adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. Marking Dodd's ninetieth birthday, an appreciation by Guardian theatre critic Michael Billington noted that "Ken has done just about everything: annual Blackpool summer seasons, pantomimes, nationwide tours, TV and radio. He was a very fine Malvolio."
File:Ken Dodd, Civic Hall, Ellesmere Port.jpg|right|thumb|upright|Dodd at the Civic Hall, Ellesmere Port in 2006. Stand-up theatre work was the mainstay of his career.
Dodd was renowned for the length of his performances, and during the 1960s he earned a place in The Guinness Book of Records for the world's longest ever joke-telling session: 1,500 jokes in three-and-a-half hours, undertaken at the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool, where audiences entered the show in shifts.
Dodd appeared in many Royal Variety Performances. The last was in 2006, in front of Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, at the London Coliseum.
Dodd toured frequently throughout his professional career, performing lengthy shows into his eighties, that often did not finish until after midnight. In his final year, he continued to tour the UK extensively, with his comedy, music and variety show. His final performance was on 28 December 2017 at the Echo Arena Auditorium in Liverpool. He said the secret of his success was simply, "I love what I do".
Music
Dodd had many hit records, charting on 18 occasions in the UK Top 40, including his first single "Love Is Like a Violin", produced on Decca Records by Alex Wharton, which charted at number 8. His version of Bill Anderson's song "Happiness" charted in 1964 and became Dodd's signature song.Dodd's recording of "Tears" on the Columbia label topped the UK singles chart for five weeks in 1965, becoming the biggest hit single in Britain that year and selling over a million copies in the UK alone. The recording was the third-highest selling song of the 1960s in Britain; at the time it was the UK's biggest selling single by a solo artist, and remains one of the biggest selling singles of all time. Dodd was selected to perform the song on A Jubilee of Music on BBC One on 31 December 1976, a celebration of the key pop successes of the Queen's first 25 years as Britain's monarch.
Dodd had two further UK top ten records: "The River ", written by Renato Angiolini with lyrics by Mort Shuman ; and "Promises", written by Norman Newell and Tom Springfield. As well as his successful chart career as a ballad singer, Dodd occasionally released comedy novelty records, including the 1965 EP Doddy and the Diddy Men, featuring the song "Where's Me Shirt?" which Dodd co-wrote.
In the 1960s, his fame in the UK was such that he rivalled the Beatles as a household name, and his records have sold millions worldwide.
In 2021, Ken Dodd's recording of "Love is Like a Violin" was featured in the Walt Disney film Cruella.
Tax evasion court case
In 1989, Dodd was charged with tax evasion. The ensuing trial, with the prosecution case led by Brian Leveson QC, produced several revelations. The Diddy Men, who had appeared in his stage act, were often played by local children from stage schools and were revealed never to have been paid. Dodd was also revealed to have very little money in his bank account, having £336,000 in cash stashed in suitcases in his attic. When asked by the judge, "What does £100,000 in a suitcase feel like?", Dodd replied, "The notes are very light, M'Lord."He also said: "I am not mean, but I am nervous of money, nervous of having it, nervous of not having it" and described money as "important only because I have nothing else".
Dodd was represented by George Carman QC, who in court quipped, "Some accountants are comedians, but comedians are never accountants". He described Dodd as "a fantasist stamped with lifelong eccentricities." The trial lasted three weeks; Dodd was acquitted.
Despite the strain of the trial, Dodd immediately capitalised on his new-found notoriety with a successful season running from Easter to Christmas 1990 at the London Palladium. It was there he had previously broken the house record for the longest comedy season at the theatre, in 1965, with a residency lasting 42 weeks. Some of his subsequent material mocked the trial and tax in general. For a while, he introduced his act with the words, "Good evening, my name is Kenneth Arthur Dodd; singer, photographic playboy, and failed accountant!" Dodd also made a joke that when income tax was introduced it was a mere 2p in every £1 earned, followed by the punchline "I thought it still was!"