- Hardcover: 296 pages
- Publisher: Michael O'Mara Books Ltd (15 Sep 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1843171236
- ISBN-13: 978-1843171232
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.2 x 3.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
388,731 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #41 in Books > Biography > Theatre & Performance Art > Cabaret
Ken Dodd: The Biography
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Product Description
Product Description
The first complete biography of the last of the great generation of British comedians. This book is published to coincide with Dodd's fiftieth year in showbiz. A new generation of fans and comedians, including Johnny Vegas, Victoria Wood and Vic Reeves, are now rediscovering Dodd's unique talents. Dodd has a huge and loyal fan base, and yet there has been astonishingly little published about him previously Unbelievably, even in his late seventies, Ken Dodd still tours the country, performing in packed venues three or four nights a week with his legendary four-hour sets. 'I do it because that is what I do. I do it because that is what I am,' he said when asked why he continues with this punishing schedule. To many, he is the last great music-hall-inspired variety comic. Yet to those who've never seen him live he is still merely the purveyor of Diddymen and sugary ballads. But what drives this man, who still lives in the house in which he was born in Knotty Ash? Why has he never married, despite having two long-term 'fiancees'? What about his famously strange relationship to money, culminating in his infamous 1989 trial for tax evasion? What was the story behind his stalker? And how did this feather-duster salesman from Liverpool become one of the greatest, though least-lauded, comic geniuses of his generation? In this major new biography, Stephen Griffin has interviewed friends, colleagues and fellow comedians to get inside the mind of the Diddyman.
About the Author
Stephen Griffin is a freelance journalist who lives in London.
Inside This Book
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Hardly definitive,
By
This review is from: Ken Dodd: The Biography (Paperback)
"Ken Dodd the Biography"? Slightly cheeky title, that, suggesting as it does a
definitive study. Dodd himself offered no cooperation and spoke darkly of "pirates" who'd written about him against his will in a recently repeated edition of BBC's Arena programme celebrating his eighty years; Michael Billington's monograph, now several decades old, was the only book he spoke about with warmth (try your library). Griffin's book passes the time agreeably enough but his prose doesn't have the sparkle of a John Fisher (Funny Way to Be a Hero & Tommy Cooper), nor is there the sense of involvement of a Graham McCann (Morecambe and Wise & Frankie Howerd)- ie the author doesn't have a compelling enough individual style to compensate for the lack of direct access to his subject. True, there are some insights from sympathetic interviewees like Roy Hudd but also a fair amount of pointless soundbites from celebrities (Anne Widdecombe?!) which don't offer much or are quoted too briefly to be of use; Bob Monkhouse - not, in my view, a natural comic but one who undoubtedly understood and appreciated others - is the notable exception here. One plus point is that Griffin does offer chapter and verse on the tax trial, which earlier books obviously couldn't do, but overall there seems little sense of the comedian's inner life. Dodd spoke in the Arena documentary of writing his autobiography; let's hope he is spared to do so. Though in fairness to Griffin maybe Monkhouse's comment that for Dodd "everything offstage is an interval" means that Dodd the person is of less interest than the "clever, spinning Dervish of a madman that he has invested with life" when performing.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Excellent Ticklemus Gift,
By
This review is from: Ken Dodd: The Biography (Paperback)
I found this book so readable I was unable to put it down. It's extremely well researched, including personal interviews as well as press cuttings. I had no difficulty relating the person revealed in the book to the clown I once saw live on the stage. Anyone looking for a different person than the one who reveals himself in his shows, or is described in this book, is pursuing a chimera. This is Ken Dodd, warts and all. Dodd himself gave up trying to analyse comedy after discovering that comedy is what makes people laugh. Amateur psychologists should do the same. Dodd bought a house he never lived in because he prefers familiar things. His was a life for living not for accounting. He never cared for details and he never cared to reveal his private thoughts. It's others, not Dodd himself, who suggested he never married because of parental influence - he never could get used to the idea of forming another family. He still lives in the house where he was born, the table is still set the way his mother used to set it and the HP bottle is out as it always was. He's still the bloke from Knotty Ash, who still lives in Knotty Ash and will always live in Knotty Ash. No further explanation is required and there's no reason why Ken Dodd should be asked to provide one either. And who can blame him given the way his private life was stripped away during his trial for tax evasion?. True to form Dodd turned disaster (he did have to pay a lot of back tax) into triumph with a lot of well received Revenue inspired material. Griffin has got it right. Dodd has kept the old music hall tradition alive with a madcap routine which provides audiences with excellent value for money (I left his live show at 12.40 a.m. when he was still going strong having been there since 7.30.p.m)!!! An excellent read, well worth the money.
15 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Ken Dodd - A Biography (not The Biography),
By A Customer
This review is from: Ken Dodd: The Biography (Hardcover)
This doesn't tell you much about Ken Dodd that couldn't be mostly gleaned from press cuttings and chatting to one or two people who know him. The definitive biography has yet to be written about this complex compulsive character who most people only know from his ebullient stage presence. What of the real man and his less well-chronicled private side? That will have to wait for another day.
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