HOW I SEE IT Ken Dodd at 90, still telling jokes to make your hair stand on end!
WITH a statue at Lime Street railway station, the freedom of the city and more awards than you can shake a tickling stick at — not to mention the knighthood earlier this year — Sir Ken dodd has long been Liverpool royalty.
So it was entirely fitting that he should receive the red- carpet treatment yesterday when the Lord Mayor of Liverpool laid on a civic reception to mark the 90th birthday of a local hero whom he hailed as ‘the king of comedy and the master of mirth’.
Family and friends gathered at the city’s Town Hall where the mad-haired comedian was briefly silenced as the children of Knotty Ash Primary School serenaded him with his signature tune, Happiness.
Pupils from Liverpool’s Trinity Primary School then recited their favourite Ken dodd jokes before the great and the good of Liverpool tucked into — what else? — jam butties.
For once, the man with a Guinness World Records entry for quickfire wit (1,500 jokes in three-and-a-half hours) was short of a punchline. ‘The reception from all those little kids from Knotty Ash School was absolutely wonderful,’ he said. ‘Very, very emotional.’
Before the party, he had made light of this great milestone. ‘There’s nothing you can do about a birthday. It’s compulsory,’ he said. ‘And it’s no use living in the past — it’s cheaper, but you can’t live in the past.’
You can try, though. The enduring appeal of Sir Ken is that he has never changed one bit. And if yesterday’s pictures were anything to go by, his hair hasn’t changed either. It was spiked up to an extraordinary height on top of his head, while the sides were swept around as though he’d been caught in a hurricane. But our picture from 1965 (right) shows he’s been using the same trick for more than half a century. While so many other local celebrities — including The Beatles, Cilla Black and assorted footballers — would turn their backs on Liverpool when fame beckoned, Sir Ken has always stayed firmly rooted in the suburb of Knotty Ash.
So much so, he still lives in the house where he was born, sharing g it with his long-term partner, Anne e Jones, who is 14 years his junior. . She has been by his side since the e Eighties. (He was engaged before, , to Anita Boutin who died of a brain n tumour in 1977.)
Anne is a former British Airways s personnel officer and Bluebell ll dancer, and has long been a great at
a support for Sir Ken. She has appeared on stage during breaks in his marathon shows, singing, g, dancing and playing piano under er the pseudonym Sibby Jones.
Over the years, she’s served as everything from his wardrobe be mistress to personal assistant.
Anne has even been deployed at the side of the stage, armed with a stopwatch, dutifully taking notes of which jokes get the longest laughs. s.
And if some of those jokes may ay have first seen the light of day when en the Fab Four were still making ng their name at the Cavern Club, his humour has proved as evergreen as the man himself. Because, as this comic genius has been proving for the best part of a century, it’s not just about the punchline. It’s about the timing, too.
The most remarkable thing about Sir Ken is that he is still touring the country, filling the same theatres and halls he was filling in his youth. Now, as then, he does so without uttering a single profanity. ANd
he still keeps them hanging on his every word for hours on end, often to the point that his audience will find they’ve missed the last bus home. ‘If you don’t laugh, I don’t mind,’ he’ll say. ‘I’ll just add another five minutes to the show.’
I heard that line long after last orders on a Sunday night in Wolverhampton ten years ago. I had come to interview him as he celebrated his 80th birthday.
Here was yet another sell- out crowd, including many family groups, three generations sitting together and all howling with laughter at the same gags.
I remember marvelling at his stamina and energy. But I never envisaged he would still be doing exactly the same a decade later.
Many thought Sir Ken’s knighthood was long overdue when he was finally summoned to Buckingham Palace. Indeed, he has quite a bit in common with the Queen.
Both began their current jobs when Winston Churchill was Prime Minister and both have steadfastly refused to contemplate retirement.
As Sir Ken likes to put it: ‘Retirement is when a man stops doing what he doesn’t want to do.’
Both, incidentally, harbour an abiding love of the Book of Common Prayer and its language. ‘While the Old Testament has rather a lot of smoting and begatting, the Prayer Book is, in many ways, very up to date,’ Sir Ken said recently. ‘It’s a wonderful piece of literature, beautifully written and based on fact.’
His first public performances were as a boy chorister at the Church of St John the Evangelist in Knotty Ash, though it was his skill as a ventriloquist which got him his first professional bookings in 1954.
The pop charts had just been introduced and young Ken, like all great variety performers, could turn his hand to anything. He would not only have 14 hits in the Top 40 but his song, Tears, was No 1 in 1965, beating The Beatles to the top. Of the five best- selling singles of the Sixties, it is the only non-Beatles song.
The Sixties and Seventies were Ken dodd’s heyday, a period when he would enjoy a record-breaking run at the London Palladium, and star in one Royal Variety Show after another. There were hit TV shows with his sidekicks, the diddy Men.
He would even enjoy the ultimate accolade of being impersonated by the other great variety stars of his day, such as Mike Yarwood.
Yet with the Eighties came ‘alternative’ comedy and the decline of the old variety acts. Television and pop music executives wanted something newer and edgier.
When dodd was charged with tax evasion in 1989, some imagined that British showbiz had finally heard its last ‘By Jove, missus’.
Not a bit of it. No sooner was he acquitted than Ken dodd was back on the road and adding a new strand to his repertoire — jokes about the taxman: ‘I told the Inland Revenue I
didn’t owe them a penny — because I lived near the seaside.’
Anne was there to support him throughout the trial, even as the legal proceedings led to the painful revelation she’d had unsuccessful fertility treatment (he described not becoming a father as his ‘biggest regret’).
Since those days, life has been much the same. ‘I love theatres,’ he said. ‘To slave over a hot audience and to see people laughing — it’s a wonderful way of life being a comedian.’
Yesterday, the Lord Mayor of Liverpool, Malcolm Kennedy, spoke for Merseyside when he declared: ‘ To borrow a line from Sir Ken, how tickled we are to be honouring him on the very special occasion of his 90th birthday. While other people of his vintage are putting their feet up, he is still performing across the country with an energy and enthusiasm that is truly age-defying.’
Indeed it is. Sir Ken will not be overdoing the celebrations, though. He’s got a cabaret in Rhyl this weekend. And there are only a few seats left at the Bradford Alhambra for the week after that. Get them while you can!