Ken Dodd
Pencil Portrait by Antonio Bosano.
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The quality of the prints are at a much higher level compared to the image shown on the left.
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Recommended viewing
Arena - Ken Dodd (BBC Tv 2007)
Doddy turned 80 in 2007. Armed with his tickling sticks, stand-up routines and songs he was still delighting his devoted audiences all over the country with his ‘Happiness’ show. Arena’s exploration of Britain’s most enduring variety entertainer would reveal his personal analysis of humour and illustrate why he was acknowledged as one of the finest exponents of his comic craft.
I taped the show – you didn’t really think I wouldn’t did you? – and felt a little short changed. Surely a (then) 53 year long career deserved at least a two part profile? Alas no, and frankly I wasn’t bombarded with an unending stream of fresh arcane facts throughout the show’s hour long duration. Nevertheless, if the documentary failed to impart a clear sense of the various phases of his career, then there was no denying the sheer unbridled joy of revisiting some sublime clips of the man in action.
And now he’s gone and variety is much the poorer for it. In this mad world in which we live, there was something reassuring about Doddy playing every conceivable theatre in Britain, delivering five hours of rib tickling humour to lighten up our lives.
Comments
Last update: 15/03/18
Having recently celebrated his 90th birthday in November 2017, Sir Ken Dodd could have been forgiven for hanging up his tickling stick and enjoying retirement after a record-breaking comedy career. After all, he’d been exercising our Chuckle Muscles for more than 60 years whilst still travelling 100,000 miles a year dazzling packed audiences with thousands of gags in each marathon one-man show.
But no – Doddy was planning a return to the road again, armed with a philosophy that kept him young. “A man retires to stop doing what he doesn’t want to do and start doing what he does want to do. I’m doing what I want to do! I see men retire and within a couple of years they’re dribbling out of the side of their mouths. In fact the veteran says he still feels like a kid on stage. “Your back tells you you’re not, but you can be young at heart at 80, 90 or even 100.”
Still putting in five and a half hour stints on stage to the very end, I last caught up with him in 2009. We bought the tickle sticks, I told my youngest daughter that she would love him and she did. Ready for bed by 10.30 pm, she nearly died when he brought out his lunchbox and announced he needed a sarnie at the half way stage to keep his energy levels up. Her face was a picture!!
When a relative of mine interviewed him for hospital radio in 1990, he was happy to talk backstage for over two hours and then generously gave him a lift home from Bournemouth to Southampton in his Mercedes. At one stage, my cousin asked him for a few jokes indigenous to Bournemouth. After thirty minutes of rapid delivery, he asked if that would do.
A comic genius – if you missed him, then I’m sad for you.