I saw Ken Dodd on two occasions 34 years apart – once with my parents at the Winter Gardens in Blackpool in 1969, and once with a friend (Mike D.) at the Parr Hall Warrington on 30th December 2003. I think the new year’s eve’s eve show was an annual event, Warrington being conveniently just up the road from Liverpool. I went in 2003 when I was temporarily living back in Warrington after my mother died.

The Blackpool show was a mere two hours I think, but the event at the Parr Hall kicked off with a sold-out audience at 7.30pm, and continued on well after midnight, with the audience decimated by fatigue and the constraints of public transport hour by hour.

I’d recently watched “Goodfellas” on DVD and it amused me to find that one of his gags was one told by “King of the one-liners, Henny Goodman” in…