The late legendary comedian Sir Ken Dodd is back on our screens tonight in a star-studded BBC2 documentary. Celebrating 70 years since his first television appearance, Ken Dodd – A Legacy Of Happiness, reveals the private man behind one of Britain’s greatest comic geniuses.
Airing at 9pm tonight, March 23, the programme pays tribute to Doddy’s remarkable career and has contributions from the likes of Sir Ian McKellen, Lee Mack and the late Paul O’Grady. Narrated by Miriam Margoyles, the show uses home movies and extracts from notebooks that he wanted to be burnt after his death to paint a picture of Ken Dodd, the man.
A star of stage and screen for more than seven decades, the much-loved veteran entertainer and Squire of Knotty Ash was famed for his tickling sticks, wild hair and buck teeth.
An entertainer in the music hall tradition, Doddy was also master of the one-liner and a successful singer. For years, Dodd worked his beloved Knotty Ash into his routines, telling stories about the Diddymen and the jam-butty mines.
He was given the the Freedom of the City of Liverpool in 2001 and became Sir Ken when he was made a Knight in the 2017 New Year’s Honours list. Sir Ken died, aged 90, on March 11, 2018, with his wife, Lady Anne at his bedside. The couple, who had been together for forty years, were married just two days before his death.
His packed out funeral was at Liverpool Cathedral 17 days later. In his eulogy, fellow comedian Jimmy Tarbuck called Sir Ken “perhaps our city’s greatest hero.”
Ahead of the BBC2 documentary, we wanted to celebrate Sir Ken Dodd by spotlighting the incredible final gift he left to our city. Just months after his death, it was announced that the late Sir Ken was to make a series of gifts to his beloved home city, courtesy of his £27.7m estate.
In February 2019, the ECHO reported how Sir Ken had made a will several years prior and that the law states that after marriage, an estate passes to the surviving spouse unless a further will was made between marriage and death.
Sir Ken and Lady Anne were married in the house in Thomas Lane where he spent his entire life. Speaking exclusively to the ECHO at the time, Lady Anne, said: “Ken loved to make people laugh – it was his life, not just a job.
“He had no desire for the trappings of wealth and it was his wish that the majority of his estate will go to charities close to his heart, many of them local. As his wife, beneficiary of his estate, and also knowing the contents of the will he made some years ago, I will be able to honour his wishes.”
Lady Anne, as trustee, has continued to develop the Ken Dodd Charitable Foundation. Fittingly, there was a a “substantial sum” for St John The Evangelist’s church hall – opposite the church, itself, and just yards from Doddy’s home.
Lady Anne had already started to fund a renovation and extension of the hall, but at the time stressed: “While it is not a listed building it is in a conservation area and we need to work very closely with the appropriate authorities, and get their approval every step of the way.”
She added: “And it would be lovely if, when all the work has been done, it could bear Ken’s name.”
Doddy was also a supporter of Shakespeare North in Prescot, which officially opened in 2022. Sir Ken was a great lover of the Bard – having played Malvolio in Twelfth Night at the Liverpool Playhouse in 1971 and Yorick (in silent flashback) in Kenneth Branagh’s film version of Hamlet in 1996.
And Lady Anne said: “He thought this was a wonderful project.” She added: “Ken was also a great supporter of our hospitals, and the Foundation will look to help them as well as various health charities.