Ken Dodd interview: Retirement? You must be joking

We've called Ken at his Liverpool home to talk about his show in Wolverhampton tomorrow night, but he seems just as interested in interviewing us as we are him.

"Are you very busy? I expect you're out and about meeting all of the Father Christmases, aren't you?" he asks. "He still comes to my house every year. He has a bigger job now because we've boarded all of the chimneys up, but he's still there, so we leave a mince pie and a little drop of something out for him."

NAME: Ken Dodd

AGE: 88

FROM: Merseyside

FAMOUS FOR: Being one of the best comedians ever. Duh!

RANDOM FACT: When he was seven, a friend dared Ken to ride his bike with his eyes shut. The subsequent crash gave him those buck teeth. He once insured them for £1 million

This playful humour is what has endeared the nation to 88-year-old Ken over a career spanning almost six decades. We're no different. We love hearing his tales, so we just sit back and let them wash over us. He's known for his long performances, once entering the Guinness Book of Records with a routine in the 1960s in which he told 1,500 jokes in three- and-a-half hours.

With only five hours to go until bedtime, we get down to business. What is Ken's favourite Christmas memory?

"I'd have to go yonks back to my best ever. I have wonderful memories of it. When you were a little girl did you get many presents?"

He once again turns the conversation to us, much happier with chit-chat than the formalities of a traditional interview. We're cheered by it, and it makes a difference from many of the cold, clinical interview replies adopted by so many modern 'stars'.

Ken is, in anyone's estimation, a true legend. "When I first heard you were calling, I thought your name was Katie. But it's Kirsty isn't it? I read the book What Katie Did at school, but now I am interested in What Kirsty Did. Are you a properly trained journalist? Can you drink like one?"

We betray our love of cider before Ken continues: "What do you want for Christmas? Something warm or something tasty? Do you want a woolly vest? I'm a thermal vest man, just in case I get an urgent gig in the North Pole."

But the North Pole will have to wait, there's an audience at the Civic to perform to tomorrow, for what Ken describes as 'a Midlands Merry Christmas, a little Wolverhampton waffling'.

After that, his seemingly never-ending tour continues on to Stoke-on-Trent on Friday and Bradford next Sunday. There are just three dates of the Happiness Tour this side of Christmas and it's no surprise. Despite sounding like a sprightly man of much younger years, life on the road can be exhausting for the octogenarian. But he downplays the graft, instead regaling us with the entertainment we can expect.

"It's not just me, we're putting on a big Christmas variety show. There's a Christmas magician – you have to have a magician at Christmas you see. It's a great magician called Zooka and a very beautiful woman called Suzie, and he saws her in half. And then he throws the best bit away.

"I'm on it too, I have to get myself in there. And then the superstar himself, Dicky Mint. He's heard a rumour that somewhere in the Midlands – almost certainly around Walsall, or Bloxwich – that there's a treacle well. So he's coming down to survey it and see if he can swap some of our Knotty Ash jam butties for some of your Bloxwich treacle for Christmas."

He's referring, of course, to his Diddy Men, a comedic creation that's featured in his routine for years. "I love the Midlands, the people there have great senses of humour. Just very good chuckle muscles!"

Our own chuckle muscles are in full work-out mode when Ken continues telling us about his show.

"There are musicians too, and singers. Live musicians, none of this miming business. It's all live. Well I think they're alive anyway, they were the last time I saw them . . . Zooka seems to know what he's doing, though we're running out of women actually. Could we saw you in half? Then your boss would have two journalists for the price of one!"

We don't want to waste Ken's time talking about ourselves again, so we turn our attention back to our questions.

"Calming and lovely ladies like you always ask three questions in interviews. One is when I'm retiring – I think that's a hint. The second is which is your favourite theatre and the third is who are your favourite comedians and comediennes on the TV today. So go on, what was your question? I'm completely at your service. You sound like a very entertaining young lady, Kirsty. Are you married?"

"Are you asking?" comes the response.

"Well, are you offering?" enquires Ken. "We can advertise it. When I'm on the stage I can say 'there's a lovely girl here called Kirsty and she's looking for a fella'. Have you got a fella?"

This getting to know each other exercise is fun, but we want to know more about Ken's Christmases. This will be his 88th, after all.

"I love working at Christmas. I love doing shows, so we do all of these dates and then two nights at the big Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool. We put a huge show on. Christmas is the sort of time when you want to be with a lot of other people making merry.

"When I was a little boy, I used to write letters to Santa and shout up the chimney. One Christmas I got a red bike – it was all red and chrome and it was super! Another year I got stage struck, my dad used to take me to the theatre in Liverpool and I used to see all these men coming on stage in their check suits and red noses, shouting jokes at the audience.

"There were magicians and ventriloquists and that's the one I wanted to be. I was very intellectual you see, I used to read The Wizard and The Hotspur. The back page used to have an advert selling itching powder and stink bombs. I once saw an advert with a man carrying a big box on his back with a speech bubble coming out of it saying 'help'. It said 'Fool your teachers! Amaze your friends! Send sixpence in stamps and become a ventriloquist!' So I did, didn't I? I started doing shows when I was about eight or nine.

"So for Christmas, I got a lovely ventriloquial figure. Don't you ever call it a doll or a dummy!" he warns, "It's a figure! So I called him Charlie Brown and was able to do shows with him."

We enquire whether he's ever got a terrible gift in all that time? We were silly to think the relentlessly positive comedian would say anything even slightly negative.

"Christmas is such a wonderful time of the year. It's a time of joy and happiness, we all get together and even if it's only for a couple of days, we love each other. And that's so wonderful. But it's so easy to mock and knock the wonderful events. It's a beautiful time of the year and though some people make mistakes and get the wrong present – I still can't get used to these high heels – why would anyone mock it?

"I had a wonderful mother and father and a lovely brother and sister and so we had fabulous Knotty Ash Christmases. And then I found the Diddy Men and we all have little tots of tickle tonic and wish each other a Happy Christmas."

Ken's happiness is infectious, hence the hugely popular Happiness tour.

"I found a marvellous song in 1962, someone sent it to me, called Happiness. I've sung it ever since at my shows. They're such great words, so we called the shows the Happiness Shows. I sang it for the first ever time in Shrewsbury at the Granada. We're going back there to the new theatre in July, but that feels like such a long time off yet.

"Travelling is the difficult part. Motorways have made it easier – now I go up and down the motorway like a human yo-yo, but it is quite stressful. But an audience is what makes me truly happy. British audiences are the best in the world, they love to laugh. It's the chuckle muscles you see, they're particularly good."

We ask whether we can pop round for a Knotty Ash Christmas too – it sounds like a laugh, especially all that tickle tonic.

"Course you can come to my house!" he says, jovially. "We bring them all in for a big party, all the friends and relations, and for new year too. I'm not a very good cook but I am a good eater. My lady partner, she's a fantastic cook and makes the best turkey ever, ever, ever. I love a turkey and I love Christmas pudding. Kirsty, you're a lovely girl. I do hope you get your woolly vest . . ."

Before we say goodbye (we've been on the phone for an age), Ken tells us a poem, one that he assures us was written especially for us . .

"You can always tell when the signs of Christmas are arriving. The binman puts your binbags straight, he whistles down the street. No trail of smelly litter, he leaves it tidy and neat. The traffic warden smiled at me, completely off his trolley. He stuck a ticket to my windscreen with a little sprig of holly. Those are the signs of Christmas!"

We hate to say goodbye, but we have to leave Ken to his tour prep.

"Come and see me in Wolverhampton and I will present you with your very own Christmas tickling stick!" he says. "Happy Christmas, and a very peaceful and happy new year. Tatty bye!"

By Kirsty Bosley

The Ken Dodd Happiness Show is at Wolverhampton Civic Hall tomorrow and the New Alexandra Theatre on April 16, 2016. For tickets and further details go to www.ticketmaster.co.uk