Screening: The Real Ken Dodd, The Man I Loved

The Real Ken Dodd: The Man I Loved is a feature documentary film which reveals for the first time the private man behind Britain’s greatest comic genius.

Produced over four years with full access from Ken’s widow Lady Dodd, the film takes an in-depth look into Doddy’s private world, exploring the many secrets of his comic talent, revealing never-before-seen home-videos, stage performances and extracts from some of the thousands of Ken’s diary notebooks which he’d asked his wife to burn after his death. Wrestling with her conscience for quite some time, Lady Dodd finally agrees with entertainment historians, museum curators and many of Ken’s admirers like Harry Hill, Lee Mack, Miriam Margolyes, Paul O’Grady, Johnny Vegas and Sir Ian McKellen to preserve Doddy’s notebooks for posterity. In one of Paul O’Grady’s final interviews, he talks of how big an influence Doddy was on his comedy career and how he was inspired by Ken’s imaginary world of the Diddy Men. These stars explore their passion and memories of Ken in this candid, insightful film which takes you backstage behind the red curtain to reveal a far more intriguing man than the public or even his wife ever realised.

Narrated by Miriam Margolyes, a long-standing fan and friend who got her first big break working with Doddy, the fly-on-the-wall cameras follow Anne as she wrestles to preserve Ken’s enormous comic and musical legacy. Witness Lady Dodd as she embarks on a four-year odyssey to establish Doddy’s lifelong dream to build a British Comedy Museum and begins to understand that if his dream is ever going to happen that is now her job. Along the way Dodd’s legacy helps create a new Shakespeare Northern Globe theatre and ensures that Ken has become the first comic to have a national museum exhibition celebrating his 70 years bringing “Happiness” to audiences across Britain.

Full of his greatest comic performances, the film lifts the veil on the secrets of the Squire of Knotty Ash and is a must-see for all Doddy fans.