Sir Kenneth Arthur Dodd (8 November 1927 – 11 March 2018) was an English comedian, singer and occasional actor.

His performances included rapid and incessant delivery of often surreal jokes, and would run for several hours, frequently past midnight.

He was to live in Knotty Ash all his life, dying in the house in which he was born, and often referred to the area—as well as its mythical "jam butty mines" and "black pudding plantations"—in his act.

His distinctive buck teeth were the result of a cycling accident after a group of school friends dared him to ride a bicycle with his eyes closed.

[10] Before becoming a full-time professional performer, mostly on stage, his first known appearance on radio was in Variety Fanfare (producer: Ronnie Taylor, venue: Hulme Hippodrome) made by the BBC in Manchester in 1950–1952.

[11][12] He said he gained his big break at age 26 when, in September 1954, he made his professional show-business debut as Professor Yaffle Chucklebutty, Operatic Tenor and Sausage Knotter at the Nottingham Empire.

He said that his comic influences included other Liverpool comedians like Arthur Askey, Robb Wilton, Tommy Handley and the "cheeky chappy" from Brighton, Max Miller.

Very happy days, the Hulme Hippodrome.”[19] He interspersed the comedy with occasional songs, both serious and humorous, in an incongruously fine light baritone voice, and with his original speciality, ventriloquism.

At first an unseen joke conceived as part of Dodd's imagination, they later appeared on stage, usually played by children or puppets.

[22] Although he enjoyed making people laugh, he was also a serious student of comedy and history, and was interested in Sigmund Freud and Henri Bergson's analysis of humour.

[10] Occasionally, he appeared in dramatic roles, including Malvolio in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night on stage in Liverpool in 1971; on television in the cameo role of 'The Tollmaster' in the 1987 Doctor Who story Delta and the Bannermen; as Yorick (in silent flashback) in Kenneth Branagh's film version of Shakespeare's Hamlet in 1996; and as Mr.

[23] Marking Dodd's ninetieth birthday, an appreciation by Guardian theatre critic Michael Billington noted that "Ken has done just about everything: annual Blackpool summer seasons, pantomimes, nationwide tours, TV and radio.

Dodd was selected to perform the song on A Jubilee of Music on BBC One on 31 December 1976, a celebration of the key pop successes of the Queen's first 25 years as Britain's monarch.

[30] As well as his successful chart career as a ballad singer, Dodd occasionally released comedy novelty records, including the 1965 EP Doddy and the Diddy Men, featuring the song "Where's Me Shirt?"

[36] Despite the strain of the trial, Dodd immediately capitalised on his new-found notoriety with a successful season running from Easter to Christmas 1990 at the London Palladium.

For a while, he introduced his act with the words, "Good evening, my name is Kenneth Arthur Dodd; singer, photographic playboy, and failed accountant!

A statue depicting Dodd with his trademark "Tickling Stick" was unveiled in Liverpool Lime Street railway station in June 2009.

"[50] In 1955, Dodd began a 22-year relationship with Anita Boutin;[51] they were engaged at the time of her death from a brain tumour in 1977, at the age of 45.

[55] During his 1989 trial details of his personal life surfaced in the media, including revelations that he and Anne had undergone several failed rounds of IVF treatment in an attempt to start a family.

[56] In October 2001, a stalker - Ruth Tagg - harassed Dodd and Jones by sending them threatening letters and a dead rat; also appearing on the front row at almost all of his live shows during this time.

"[61] In the December 2018 BBC TV retrospective, How Tickled We Were, the comic's biographer Michael Billington ranked Dodd alongside Lord Olivier as one of "the two theatrical geniuses of the British stage" in the writer's own lifetime.

In the same broadcast, fellow Liverpudlian and comedian Jimmy Tarbuck declared Dodd "the greatest stage comic the country has ever seen".

[63] In September 2022, Lady Dodd endowed stained-glass windows at St Anne's Church, Old Swan, in memory of her husband.