Customer Reviews
Solid professional writing - but no special insight - By: Peter H, 15 Sep 2008 
Whatever you think of Ken Dodd or whether you laugh at his jokes you can't say the guy is lazy. From a hard life of rejection as a door-to-door salesman to the hard life of the club circuit you feel that his smallish cash-in-hand fortune has been well earned. Behind the crooked smiles he is tough guy from a tough city.
But what drives him - what motivates him to carry on when the lure of the holiday home & the golf course has captured so many stars of yesteryear?
Don't read this book to find out - because it is a case of "your guess is as good as mine." Indeed does author (Stephen Griffen) even like Ken Dodd or chuckle at his work? Hard to tell, although authorsin love with stars write the worst biographies - unless you are of the same mind.
The famous cash-in-the-attic court case & an unlikely infatuated fan give variety & colour to a life that hasn't changed muchin decades. The same clothes, the same jokes, the same songs & - probably - the same audience.
This is a solid book written by a solid author who has read every clipping & rang every dog-eared numberin his black book. However too often this reads like the school homework of a bright pupilin a subject that interests him (personally) very little. There simply isn't enough material for the recycled tree. Too many questions. Too few answers.
If you are a fan you are far better with one of his DVD's than this product.
Ken Dodd - A Biography (not The Biography) - By: , 15 Nov 2005 
This doesn't tell you much about Ken Dodd that couldn't be mostly gleaned from press cuttings & chatting to one or two people who know him. The definitive biography has yet to be written about this complex compulsive character who most people only know from his ebullient stage presence.
What of the real man & his less well-chronicled private side? That will have to wait for another day.
