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 Stephen K Amos, Harry Hill, Shaparak Khorsandi, Lee Mack, Paul O’Grady, Johnny Vegas, and Sir Ian McKellen to preserve Doddy’s notebooks for posterity. 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.

Ken Dodd: How Tickled We Were tells Sir Ken’s story from his boyhood growing up in the 1930s in Knotty Ash, through his big break into show business and then on to his unrivalled career in entertainment. Poignant and uplifting, the programme features interviews with the people who knew Sir Ken best – friends and family in Liverpool and beyond, and his many colleagues, admirers and fellow-performers from the world of entertainment. The programme also features an interview with Sir Ken’s wife, Lady Anne Dodd.

A star-studded documentary revealing the private man behind one of Britain’s greatest comic geniuses, using home movies and extracts from notebooks that he wanted to be burnt after his death.