Liverpool to get £15m Sir Ken Dodd Happiness Centre

Sir Ken Dodd’s joke books, tickling sticks and other artefacts are to be preserved in a new £15m centre dedicated to the late comedy legend in his home city of Liverpool.

The Sir Ken Dodd Happiness Centre will provide a permanent home for his archive, as well as hosting comedy performances and events.

The four-storey centre will be attached to the city’s Royal Court theatre, where Sir Ken regularly performed during his career. He died in 2018.

The plans were submitted in November and were approved by Liverpool City Council last week.

His widow Lady Anne Dodd said: “I am thrilled that my dream of creating a legacy to celebrate Ken’s life has reached such a landmark stage.”

“Ken spent many happy hours entertaining thousands in the Royal Court Theatre and I know he would be delighted that his legacy building links to the theatre he helped to save back in 1979,” Lady Anne added.

The centre will have exhibition space for Sir Ken’s possessions, like his Diddymen puppets and the notebooks that he filled with jokes and thoughts about his life and seven-decade career.

He left about 1,000 books, which he used to record jokes – marking the best with the acronym GOG for “good old gag”.

He also made observations about the art of comedy, while some pages give insights into intimate and revealing thoughts.

However, he also left instructions for his wife to burn them after his death. But she decided to save them, explaining that they were “unique” and “invaluable”.

The centre will be built on the site of the theatre’s current Courtyard Bar, with the aim of opening in time for the 100th anniversary of Sir Ken’s birth in 2027.

Royal Court chief executive Gillian Miller said: “There is no better city than Liverpool to create a centre for happiness and wellbeing in, and we are looking forward to delivering a unique building for the city that epitomises happiness.”

The theatre is working on the plan with the Comedy Trust and the Sir Ken Dodd Charitable Foundation.