FANS lined the streets of Liverpool to pay their final respects to comedian Sir Ken Dodd on Wednesday. Here we look back to the time the much-loved comedian first played Darlington

The Northern Echo: GEORGIAN THEATRE: Ken Dodd visiting Richmond in April 1985 where he was met by children from the Winston Follies group dressed as Diddymen

GEORGIAN THEATRE: Ken Dodd visiting Richmond in April 1985 where he was met by children from the Winston Follies group dressed as Diddymen

KEN DODD first played the then Darlington Civic Theatre in June 1977. His three-night booking was regarded as something of a coup for the theatre director, Peter Tod, but Doddy’s behaviour was rather erratic.

The first night he pulled up in Parkgate so late that the theatre staff were waiting for him on the street as the show was already under way.

“What time am I on?” he asked, once he’d wound his car window down.

“Five minutes ago,” was the reply.

“Who’s on before me?” he asked.

“Susan Maughan,” came the reply (she was a singer from Consett famed for her 1962 hit Bobby’s Girl).

“Oh, that’s alright,” said Doddy, “she always over-runs.” And he tootled off to park his tattyfilarious car and get his tickling sticks ready.

He’d keep the audience in the theatre until at least midnight before disappearing back to Knotty Ash in Liverpool. The next night he’d arrive back in Darlington only just in time to appear on stage.

It was only the following month when the reasons behind his odd behaviour became clear.

“The secret heart-break behind Ken Dodd’s laugh-a-minute act in his recent show at Darlington Civic Theatre can now be revealed,” said the Echo’s sister paper, the Despatch, on July 2, 1977. “Every night after the show he dashed across to a Merseyside hospital where the woman he loved lay dying.”

His partner of 22 years, Anita Boulin, was suffering from a brain tumour.

“Ken, the wild-haired buck-toothed comedian with a string of hit records, fulfilled the tradition that the show must go on,” said the Despatch.

Doddy, who himself died this week, returned time and again to the Civic and other theatres in the region, and seemed particularly delighted to make his only appearance at Richmond’s 213-seat theatre in 1985, when he was met by a posse of suitably dressed schoolchildren.

“It’s always been an ambition of mine to come to The Georgian Theatre, but I didn’t think I would be greeted by a real giggle of Diddymen,” he said.

His connections go much deeper than just performing shows. Peter Jefferies emailed to draw to our attention that Sir Ken’s aunt, Annie Boyd, had married and moved to Whinney Hill in Durham City. In 1972, when he was making a promotional visit to the House of Andrews stationery store in Saddler Street, he made a surprise visit to see aunt Annie which was splashed all over the local papers.