LET me start my column this month by saying a huge congratulations to one of my favourite comedians, and an inspiration to me personally, Ken Dodd.

Ken, who is 89, was knighted by Prince William for his services to charity and entertainment last week at Buckingham Palace.

In jovial mood outside the palace, Ken gave a wonderful thank you you speech to everyone involved, even the Diddy Men in Knotty Ash.

I have to tell you this man is an absolute powerhouse of a performer.

His pace and delivery is brilliant and when I saw him live at the Parr Hall in Warrington it was like a masterclass.

This was five years ago and we were sat on the front row.

My wife had got us tickets and I was just starting my career as a stand-up comedian.

From the word go Ken was on fire. Jumping onto the stage banging the ‘big drum of Knotty Ash’ , it was unbelievable the energy he had for a man in his 80s.

He then grabs the mic places it in the stand at the centre of the stage and didn’t move for two hours.

There was joke after joke after joke full of observations, stories, even jokes about funny place names in Warrington.

“Grab and haul (Grappenhall) is my favourite,” he said.

And then he just put his hand out in front of him at waist height and mimicked a grabbing motion.

It had me in stitches – something so simple it was genius .

A wonderful blend of all forms of stand-up, you can’t put Ken in a box and that’s what makes him the ultimate in my opinion

This is a man that has been performing for 63 years. He’s still performing now at the grand old age of 89 and, coming back to what I spoke about before, him standing there for two hours telling jokes?

That’s just the start of the show .

After an interval Ken came back onto the stage and did a ventriloquist act, he also sang.

He had a great voice, the songs were full of humour .

He then spoke to me and my wife in front of the entire audience and destroyed us for about half an hour, it was wonderful.

He asked us where we lived. At the time I lived across the road from the theatre at Knightsbridge Court.

He said: “My brother in law used to live in those flats. He was very good builder.

“He built a loft in one those flats. Tremendous job the people upstairs were not very happy, mind.”

Laugher erupts. Fantastic .

I had an opportunity to meet him last year but missed out.

I was performing next door in the same theatre building as him on the Wirral.

I was among a number of comics performing in the studio room for a regular monthly comedy show night to about 150 people.

Ken was next door in the main auditorium performing to a 1,000.

The reason I didn’t meet him was I couldn’t stick around until 2am in the morning – that’s when his show was due to finish!

The man is phenomenal. One thing that you can say about Ken’s performances is you will get value for money

I would like to finish this piece by saying congratulations once again to Ken – sorry Sir Ken – and I hope he continues performing his Happiness Show for as long as possible.

My advice is see it while you can.

See you next month

BOBBY MURDOCK

n For more from Bobby visit whodaresgrins.com or follow him on Twitter at @bobbymurdock