'I suffer from acute kleptomania. But when it gets bad, I take something for it.'

Ken Dodd was a legend of British comedy. He launched his career in 1954, adopted his trademark 'tickling stick' two years later and went on to enjoy a sixty-year career as the nation's jester. Dodd's act was frenzied and zany, exploiting his saucer-eyed, buck-toothed appearance and deploying a repertoire of one-liners, whimsical and verbal inventions and liberal doses of saucy – but never dirty – jokes.

Louis Barfe charts Dodd's life and extraordinarily long career, revealing him to be the last of the great variety acts – and a comic phenomenon who delighted his audiences across seven decades.

Reviews for Happiness and Tears:

'The definitive account' The Times.

'An industriously thorough, entertaining biography' The Spectator.

'Sure to delight Dodd's many admirers' TLS.

'Fascinatingly odd' Daily Express.

'An absolute joy' Choice.