Happiness and Tears - The Ken Dodd Story

''I suffer from acute kleptomania. But when it gets bad, I take something for it.''
Ken Dodd was a legend of British comedy. He launched his career in 1954, adopted his trademark ''tickling stick'' two years later and went on to enjoy a sixty-year career as the nation''s jester. Dodd''s act was frenzied and zany, exploiting his saucer-eyed, buck-toothed appearance and deploying a repertoire of one-liners, whimsical and verbal inventions and liberal doses of saucy – but never dirty – jokes.

Louis Barfe charts Dodd''s life and extraordinarily long career, revealing him to be the last of the great variety acts – and a comic phenomenon who delighted his audiences across seven decades.

Reviews for Happiness and Tears:

''The definitive account'' The Times.

''An industriously thorough, entertaining biography'' The Spectator.

''Sure to delight Dodd''s many admirers'' TLS.

''Fascinatingly odd'' Daily Express.

''An absolute joy'' Choice.