Laughing matters (From The Northern Echo)

Laughing matters

10:19am Saturday 29th August 2009

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He’s 81, still doing four-hour shows, and has no intention of stopping, comedian Ken Dodd tells Viv Hardwick.

AT an age when most comedians are happy to reflect on past glories, 81- year-old Ken Dodd has been fighting tooth and nail to resurrect his career in the city where he made his debut.

For most of his 55-year career the Knotty Ash-based comic has staged a Christmas show – until this year when Nottingham’s Royal Concert Hall announced it wasn’t going to rebook him because it was felt the quality of his Happiness Shows had dropped.

“I found out that the chap in charge of the bookings hadn’t even seen my show last year. I think he felt he was being trendy. But there was such a fuss that we’re back in again and already half the tickets have gone,” says Dodd, admitting that he’s a man obsessed with appearing on stage.

His hectic 200-shows-a-year schedule takes in Scarborough’s Futurist Theatre tonight, Sunderland Empire theatre tomorrow and Darlington’s Civic Theatre in October.

Sunderland is always a highlight because it was his second booking as a comic after Nottingham. “I used to record things on an old 8mm cine camera in those days. I recall filming the dawn breaking over Sunderland and thinking ‘that’ll teach me a lesson’.

I remember doing 14 minutes in front of the curtain and then spending the rest of the time debating with the backstage crew which city had the best football team, Liverpool or Sunderland. They won, of course, because there were more of them,” he says.

A relative late starter to showbusiness, Dodd was a 26-year-old travelling salesman when he took the plunge.

“I got the bug when I did my first show at an orphanage when I was about 11. The Father in charge gave me half-a-crown and from that moment, knowing I could earn money making people laugh, I was hooked,”

he says.

“I’d go with my family to the theatre and soon realised that it was the comedians who everybody wanted to see. I got home and asked my father to tell me a few jokes that I could use,” explains Dodd.

Dodds’ father was a coal merchant who owned a listed Georgian farmhouse where the comic still lives today, the same home where the taxman found hundreds of thousands of pounds in suitcases in the loft in 1989 as Dodd was charged with tax evasion.

“The headlines about MPs’ expenses have figured prominently in my act this year. To find out what the people in charge of the tax system are up to has been like balm to my ears,” he says.

Dodd isn’t keen on discussing his age, thoughts of retirement or being asked in June to unveil a statue dedicated to him on Liverpool’s Lime Street Station.

“It is a little weird being asked to unveil your own statue, but there was a time in 1965 when I was travelling down to the London Palladium to play 42 sell-out weeks. I’m not sure about this ‘living legend’ or ‘comedian’s comedian’ stuff and I don’t think I am the last of an era either.

My heroes were Arthur Askey, Ted Ray, Robb Wilton and Tommy Handley and they were followed by legends like Tommy Cooper, Morecambe & Wise and Les Dawson. But there will be others... you just won’t see them on TV at the moment, because they’re still doing their apprenticeship on tour.”

Doddy certainly gives his fans value for money. His shows usually last way beyond the four-hour mark.

“I can’t help it,” he explains. “All I can think about is that people have spent their hard-earned cash on a ticket. I’ve been blessed with good health, so why can’t I go on doing my show? I just love being Ken Dodd.”

■ Ken Dodd, tonight, Scarborough Futurist Theatre, 01723-374500; tomorrow, Sunderland Empire Theatre, 0844-847-2499 (almost sold out); October 8-9, Darlington Civic Theatre, 01325-486-555.

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