What is the legacy of a great comedian? In the past it lay principally in private memories. My own aged brain is filled with recollections of laugh-inducing eccentrics such as Tommy Cooper, Frankie Howerd, Max Wall, and Jewel and Warriss (the best of all double acts). Top of the list is Ken Dodd whom I spent countless hours – possibly days – watching in a variety of venues ranging from the London Palladium to a working-men’s club in Wythenshawe.
In the case of Doddy, a more permanent legacy is now in prospect in the shape of the Sir Ken Dodd Happiness Centre at the Royal Court in Liverpool. Planning permission has been given for the creation of a four-storey space that will house vital parts of the Dodd archive – including the thousand notebooks on comedy his widow, Anne, thankfully preserved – and will also celebrate Liverpool’s comic tradition and offer guidance to the next generation of laughter-makers. It will cost £15m, much of which comes from the Sir Ken Dodd Charitable Trust, and should be open in time for the centenary, in 2027, of the great man’s birth.
