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    Ken Dodd's Dead

    Comedy legend Sir Ken Dodd dies aged 90. That's a fairly good innings.

    https://www.theguardian.com/stage/20...d-dies-aged-90

    I saw him live in Eastbourne a while back, and I'm glad I did. I mean, I didn't laugh, except for an amusing aside about a pilchard sandwich, but you could see the direct link to old time music hall and the history that he carried with him. I left at the interval, just over two hours in. Say what you like about him, you can't say he didn't offer value for money.

    #2
    From that Guardian link: "He stood trial for tax fraud in 1989 but was acquitted." The very first thing that sprang to mind about him is the first part, whereas the acquittal slipped my mind entirely. Memory, such a cruel judge.

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      #3
      That court case was nearly 30 years ago - George Carman versus Brian Leveson:

      http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/1...ry_frees_Dodd/

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        #4
        My grandma once asked Ken Dodd to autograph a copy of the harrowing autobiography of a Boulton Paul Defiant pilot who’d been shot down and badly burned. He obliged.

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          #5
          Did he?

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            #6
            No, Doddy.

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              #7
              Ken Dodd's acquittal was one of the most farcical miscarriages of justice in British tax history. He'd literally been flying to the Isle of Man with suitcases full of cash and not declaring it to the taxman. Still, funny man.

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                #8
                Maybe they'll put his ashes in a suitcase in his attic.

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                  #9
                  Stolen:

                  The funeral will be held on Wednesday.....



                  ....Thursday, Friday and most of Saturday.

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                    #10
                    Tax Dodd-ging aside (if we can), he was a pretty entertaining fellow, all things considered. He was smart in that his act was all-embracing: your parents liked him, their parents liked him, you liked him as a kid - even without his Diddymen. The shtick was daft enough on its own.

                    I saw him just the once, in Carshalton I think, during 1994. Doddy (see?) was on for four bloody hours, making a running joke of the protracted nature of his act - in itself funny - and while a lot of the material was 'gentle' and appealing to your blue-rinse brigade, there were genuine moments of inspired nonsense. (One piece about his grandmother who claimed that she could lip-read Thunderbirds still draws a smile...)

                    Then there were those schmaltzy* records: 1965's best-selling single Tears was number one for over a month and shifted 1.5 million copies in the UK alone, fact fans. (*In its correct usage.)

                    RIP (rest in plumptiousness)...

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                      #11
                      There's a joke that puts another of his songs into some perspective.

                      The Macmillans and De Gaulles were having lunch shortly after the two men had stood down from public life.
                      'What would you like now your husband has retired?' enquired Mrs McM
                      'I think I would like a penis' replied Mme deG
                      After a little embarrassed silence, M. deG came to his wife's rescue:
                      'I zink ze Henglish pronounce it "'appiness'."

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                        #12
                        Tax shennanigans aside, I admired Dodd for his refusal to fade away and to keep up entertaining at that age where lesser mortals would long have called it a day and plumped for the slippers and fireside cocoa. If there was one aspect which didn't entirely make me embrace the performer fully was his lack of any onstage persona to completely warm to, leaving instead a relentlessly happy one-liner machine who didn't let up. I can see where it'd get a bit wearing for anyone bombarded for long periods by hoary-to-good jokes by a perpetually cheerful bloke. For contrast, there was Les Dawson, who was far more multi-faceted as a performer and writer, and conveyed a bit more depth underlying that hangdog, miserable persona.

                        But I can't argue with Dodd's staying power and his need to give the punters what they wanted and expected.
                        Last edited by ian.64; 12-03-2018, 13:30.

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                          #13
                          Once the Two Ronnies had both gone (after, of course, Morecambe & Wise, Tommy Cooper and Dave Allen), there were no real classics from my youth left. Dodd, like Monkhouse, had, as ian.64 accurately says, no real onstage persona aside from gags. Of course, Cooper was the king of the one-liners but intertwined it in a narrative as physical as it was verbal and a character of great depth. Of course, both Dodd and Monkhouse could be funny, the latter hilarious but it was very scatter gun and didn't give you a persona or character to warm to.

                          Then there was the tax-dodging, of course. My first thought, after hearing that he married his long-term partner just before his death, was whether there would be a tax advantage in it.

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                            #14
                            Sorry, but that's nonsense - of course Dodd had his own on-stage persona. The comedy itself wasn't sophisticated, no, but that was surely why it was so universally appealing. Compare him to contemporaries of whom one could make that same statement: it might sound like damning with faint praise, but he was lightyears better than your out-and-out variety-circuit gag merchants like Tarbuck.

                            I don't think anybody would argue that Tommy Cooper, for example, was a much greater talent (or Monkhouse a far better gag-writer), but Dodd was around during something of a golden age for British comedy. His daft shtick obviously wasn't at that level, but it was at least his own: that he was a performer greater than his material I'd venture is also without doubt.

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                              #15
                              I would agree with that, he was an amazing performer who elevated the material beyond where it perhaps ought to be. (On the other hand, he had some killer one-liners.) I always got the impression - and people who've seen more of him and met him say - that he was a very, very nice guy who throughly enjoyed making people laugh. Not attention seeking, just a proper music hall / variety entertainer, free of cynicism and desperation. RIP Sir Kenneth Arthur Dodd, comedian, singer and failed accountant.

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                                #16
                                Numerous comedians and singers of his era and later are probably remembered as much for their telly light entertainment as anything. In most cases (including Dodd's) their talents were crammed into a "variety" show, made cosy to the point of soporific. I mean, Lulu could sing, Cilla and Cliff could sing, but first ... a sketch! With wobbling scenery!

                                I never saw Dodd live, maybe he was terrific. But the one in our living rooms was a filler before MOTD or a Hammer horror.

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                                  #17
                                  Missed thread title: Notty ashes to ashes.

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                                    #18
                                    Awesome video of Dodd improvising gags with The Beatles

                                    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VgiiSfrf3So

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                                      #19
                                      Apparently Ken Dodd's tax affairs were known in the entertainment industry as a Diddy:

                                      Diddy pay and Diddy hell !!
                                      Last edited by Paul S; 12-03-2018, 23:43.

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                                        #20
                                        (Pssst - I don't think you need either 'he' in that joke...)

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                                          #21
                                          Edited to make your post out of date!

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                                            #22
                                            My favourite Doddy quote

                                            “Freud once observed that a laugh is merely a conservation of psychic energy. But the problem with Freud is that he never had to play the Glasgow Empire second house on a Friday night.’

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