Happiness and Tears: The Ken Dodd Story

Description

”I suffer from acute kleptomania. But when it gets bad, I take something for it.”
Ken Dodd was a legend of British comedy. He launched his career in 1954, adopted his trademark ”tickling stick” two years later and went on to enjoy a sixty-year career as the nation”s jester. Dodd”s act was frenzied and zany, exploiting his saucer-eyed, buck-toothed appearance and deploying a repertoire of one-liners, whimsical and verbal inventions and liberal doses of saucy – but never dirty – jokes.

Louis Barfe charts Dodd”s life and extraordinarily long career, revealing him to be the last of the great variety acts – and a comic phenomenon who delighted his audiences across seven decades.

Reviews for Happiness and Tears:

”The definitive account” The Times.

”An industriously thorough, entertaining biography” The Spectator.

”Sure to delight Dodd”s many admirers” TLS.

”Fascinatingly odd” Daily Express.

”An absolute joy” Choice.