THE newly knighted Sir Ken Dodd brings his Happiness Show to Bournemouth Pavilion Theatre on Easter Saturday.

Doddy - who made his professional debut in 1954 - just one year after the Queen's coronation, was knighted by Prince William at Buckingham Palace for both his 63-year comedy career and charity work. Few people know that he has quietly supported more than 100 charities over the years.

Ken, who was given an OBE in 1982, told the Daily Echo: "I'm very delighted - highly tickled!"

Considered the last of the great music hall entertainers, Ken's stand-up comedy style is fast and relies on the rapid delivery of one-liner jokes. His comic influences include other Liverpool comedians like Arthur Askey, Robb Wilton, Tommy Handley and the "cheeky chappy" from Brighton, Max Miller.

He intersperses the comedy with occasional songs, both serious and humorous, in an incongruously fine light baritone voice, and with his original speciality, ventriloquism.

He has had 19 UK Top 40 hits, including his first single "Love Is Like a Violin" (1960), and "Tears" which topped the UK charts for five weeks in 1965, selling over a million copies. At the time it was the UK's biggest selling single by a solo artist, and remains one of the UK's biggest selling singles of all time.

Ken is renowned for the length of his performances, and during the 1960s he earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the world's longest ever joke-telling session: 1,500 jokes in three and a half hours (7.14 "tittters per minute").

Perpetually touring, despite fast approaching his 90th birthday, Ken says he thrives on playing live:

"I come alive when I have an audience in front of me and you learn how to play an audience like you play an instrument. You use an audience in the same way. Experience teaches you to look for that 'hot spot'; where they are frigid and warm and you play the audience.With posh people it's called 'establishing a rapport'. I call it 'building a bridge' . When you hear the music at the start of the show you are full of joy and you have 30 seconds or just under a minute to reach the audience ; to get to know the audience, and that's when you do it. It's like meeting someone for the first time."

Accolades don't come much higher than a knighthood but even now Sir Ken - who won the British Comedy Society’s first Living Legend award, still thinks very carefully about what he will do at Bournemouth Pavilion on Easter Saturday:

"I'm getting some new gags together and it's a difficult tight-rope act ( combining old and new material) . I still keep the note books (a "gigglemap" of what works and what doesn't in different towns) and I still talk to myself after the show. I tell myself what I did right and what I did wrong . Anyone can create an idea but polishing it is key...all the best pieces of comedy - even an article, a novel, film or television, are all the better for clever editing and polishing."

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