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Liverpool Entertainers
In 2001 the Guinness Book of Records declared Liverpool 'City of Pop' due to the many number one records to have emerged from the city. The most famous band to have come from Liverpool is of course The Beatles who played many of their early gigs at the Cavern Club. There are a number of articles about The Beatles on this site, there is also a feature about Brian Epstein and another about ‘Liverpool’s Laughter Makers’ but I wanted to take some time out to mention some of the other entertainers that have put the city on the map. Now obviously, to write an article including them all would require a website all of its own, so I’m just going to pick a few at Random and maybe do a couple more of these articles over time.
KENNETH Arthur Dodd, OBE was born on 8th November 1927, in Knotty Ash, Liverpool, the son of a coal merchant, Arthur Dodd and wife Sarah. He had an older brother, William (1925–2011). He went to the Knotty Ash School, and sang in the local church choir of St John’s Church, Knotty Ash. At the age of seven, he was dared by his school friends to ride his bike with his eyes shut. He accepted the dare, crashed, and received facial injuries which resulted in his distinctive buck teeth.
He then attended Holt High School, a grammar school in Childwall, but left at age fourteen to work for his father. Around this time he became interested in show business after seeing an advert in a comic: "Fool your teachers, amaze your friends—send 6d in stamps and become a ventriloquist!" he sent off for the book. Not long after, his father bought him a ventriloquist's dummy and Ken called it Charlie Brown. He started entertaining at the local orphanage, then at various other local community functions. He got his big break at age twenty-six when, in September 1954, he made his professional show-business debut at the now-demolished Nottingham Empire. Kens stand-up comedy style is fast and relies on the rapid delivery of one-liner jokes. He has claimed that 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.
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