As the last part of my 60th birthday I had my night out to see Ken Dodd, just about the last great comedian of my childhood and youth. I had been given two tickets as a present from Joy and Dan but, my surviving family are all philistines and do not appreciate his humour. I can only think it was because they had not seen so much of him on TV or listened to his radio shows as I had while growing up. Nevertheless, Andrew agreed to come along and use the spare ticket. I think he enjoyed Doddy but, like me was not over impressed with the variety support acts that give Ken a breather and the audience time to visit the bar and toilets.
I had always regretted never seeing Morecambe and Wise, or Tommy Cooper live, so I count it as a treat to see the last survivor of the great era of comedy. Last time out, he was at a slightly younger age still very much on top of his game, knocking out a five minute stint of rapid blond jokes and even doing a round of comedy on mobile phones. His only support that night was the band and the same woman that played piano, flute and guitar. The rest of the night was pure comedy only broken by his still strong singing voice.
This time round at a grand old age of 86 he was clearly running out of steam, not helped by the fact his top teeth had broken and had a nasty cough too. He has habitually run his fingers through his long hair to keep it in disarray, as his image demands, and I noticed this time there were strands of his hair falling out. Overall he looked quite ill and his mind seemed to wonder at times. However, when he got going I still found him very funny and he had me laughing to the end. What amazes me is the fact he even has his backing band laughing, when they have clearly seen the act every night of the tour.
The extra variety acts were weak apart from the multi talented singer woman, we were close enough to hear the magician clicking the ratchet on the platform for his levitation act and I could definitely have lived without the bloke plucking chickens out of streams of handkerchiefs. This was pure variety of the 40s era or earlier and my grandmother always loved this corny act. Different generations: thus my children’s reaction to Ken Dodd, even though I doubt any of them have seen his act. The audience appeared to be quite hostile compared to his last show and I found this difficult to comprehend. What did they expect to see? His style of comedy, good clean family fun with wild nonsense is legendary. As is his through to the early hours shows that I felt a little cheated by this time around when I was prepared to walk home in daylight and he finished at about 12 minutes past midnight.
His second half was much more of his old confident self, despite the thinning audience and started with his ventriloquism act which despite seeing many times over still makes me laugh.
Doddy: “You must be really thirsty”
Puppet: “Yes”
Doddy: “Would you like a drink?”
Puppet: “Yes”
Doddy: “Well what would you like to drink? A Big Brown Bottle of Beer or a shandy?”
Puppet: ” Shandy.”
Doddy: ” Thank goodness for that.” 🙂
He then did a routine which showed his skills with regional accents from round the British Isles culminating in his suggestion to remake some Hollywood classics in Hollywood Birmingham. Scene from remake of Gone with the Wind; Reth Butler to Scarlet: “Or right ar kid oim just off ter fight a war a while” Final scene “Frankly moi dear, oi doh give a toss.”
He finished rather abruptly, I thought, at a time when the audience had finally warmed up and clearly wanted more. I fear he really is not well. Despite that he had a well deserved standing ovation and delayed leaving the stage for a good ten minutes as people queued up to shake his hand. It was a grand night out for me and I hope he has plenty more chuckles left to hand out but, I think old age has finally caught up with him. Full credit to him as well for keeping variety alive, even though I would have enjoyed five solid hours of Doddy more than poor magicians and bird acts.