Beginning his career in 1954, Ken Dodd has remained one of Britain's best-loved entertainers. Even today at the age of eighty-eight, his HAPPINESS show continues to tour Britain to packed houses.
This ARENA documentary doesn't tell us much about him, save for the fact that he was born in Knotty Ash, Liverpool, and was pretty much stage-struck from a very young age. Having served his theatrical apprenticeship in clubs and other small venues, he became a major star in the nid-Sixties, when he played a lengthy season at the London Palladium and had a Number One hit with "Tears," that lasted eighteen weeks in the charts. Television welcomed his talents, but his real reputation was made by constant touring, attracting regular audiences and their families who would come back year after year to see him in their favorite venues.
The program did suggest that for all his surface affability, Ken Dodd loves control. He has total say over the content and form of his shows, and although welcoming a considerable degree of interaction with his audiences, he likes to keep them in their place. This is no bad thing for a comic who can spend up to four hours per night entertaining them, but suggests a certain obsession that will not go away. There may be more than one Ken Dodd, an offstage as well as an onstage self, but the onstage self predominates.
