Tribute show in the pipeline

Ken Dodd’s life could be made into a West End show.

Producer Michael Harrison, who stages pantomimes at the London Palladium, has bought the rights to all the comedian’s material.

He told the Daily Mail’s Baz Bamigboye that the deal with Dodd’s widow, Anne, included 'everything written down, filmed and recorded ... even witticisms scribbled on scraps of paper’.

However the project is still in its very early stages, with not even a playwright attached yet.

With any show two to three years away, the producer said the writer who is signed up would first meet with Lady Anne at her Knotty Ash home to 'comb through the barrels full of laughs’ to create the script.

But ‘the key is going to be: how do you cast a genius?' he mused.

Harrison’s other production credits include Joseph And His Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Singing In The Rain and Oklahoma!

Dodd died at the age of 90 in 2018, leaving copious notes of all the gigs he performed over his career, including which jokes went down best in which towns.

Published: 11 Feb 2022