Tuesday, May 12, 2009

How clueless are the bookers at Nottingham's Royal Concert Hall? They've cancelled Ken Dodd's booking for a show in December 2009, after "a significant number of audience members left before the end" of his show there last December. This, apparently, raised "concerns to our manager on the night as to the quality of some of the performances within the show". Quality? The only problem with a Doddy show is quantity. When I went to see him in Lowestoft, I enjoyed the full 5 hours, secure in the knowledge that I was a 5-minute walk from my bed. Others will have had further to travel and might reluctantly have made an exit before the finale. I'd be very surprised if the people who left the Nottingham show thought that they'd got anything less than excellent value for money, and would have booked up for December 2009 and left early again. I think we're dealing with weasel speak. When anyone says guff like "the management team therefore took the difficult decision to give this long-running and much-loved show a break during 2009" you know they're hiding something. "We can't afford to pay overtime to the usherettes" is probably closer to the truth.

5 comments:

David L Rattigan said...

Doddy not funny? Utter tosh.

Consistently hilarious; still one of the nation's funniest comedians, even after all these years.

Jon Peake said...

I'm afraid I think he's probably past it, but never having seen him live, it's not really fair for me to comment.

Bright Ambassador said...

He regulalry plays at the Newark Palace (fifteen miles from Nottingham Concert Hall) and the blurb in the seasonal programme of events always says "Book early, stay late". Although saying that is a bit pointless as it's always inexpicably sold out before the events' programme is even distributed.

Louis Barfe said...

Past it, F-C? God no. He's still an amazing live performer. And BA, the same happens here in Lowestoft. As he says "The best advertisement is a poster saying 'sold out'".

Suzy Norman said...

I saw him as a kid. I remember the stage show being very long indeed but it meant we were having a proper night out and as a family, it was hugely fun.