The Comedy Trust have been working with a cohort of new mums with our partners at PSS, exploring how humour can make us more resilient. Sessions have been led by a comedian and a creative practitioner and the mums have brought some HILARIOUS stories!

In celebration of World Mental Health Day 2024, The Comedy Trust is offering a 30% discount on all Humour & Health sessions booked by Liverpool-based businesses for October.

Led by a professional comedian, these sessions offer a refreshing alternative to traditional mental health workshops. By focusing on how humour can be a vital tool for mental wellbeing, the sessions not only boost morale but also foster a more positive and connected work environment.

Sessions are designed to improve staff mental health and wellbeing. These engaging and interactive sessions are designed to create laughter and build resilience among employees, using the power of humour to make meaningful connections.

By Jove, it’s time for some rib-tickling at the fifth annual Doddy Day Happiness Show!

The Squire Of Knotty Ash liked nothing more than making people laugh so to celebrate his birthday each year we bring together comedians and singers to reduce an audience to helpless laughter once again.

This year we’ll start with Lady Anne Dodd on stage in conversation with Sam Avery about The Real Ken Dodd.

Following the conversation and insight will be Sean Styles (BBC Radio Merseyside); Steve Royle (Britain’s Got Talent Finalist, star of Phoenix Nights) and Youth performers from The Comedy Trust's Laugh it Off programme. Further hilarious and irrepressible acts are to be confirmed.

The line-up will be full of familiar faces with one thing on their mind – making you laugh!

This show will be a celebration of all things Doddy so look out for jam butties, tickling sticks and plenty of fun.

Prepare your chuckle muscles for a tattyfilarious day of laughter.

Tickets are just £10 each so book soon to get more than your share of Happiness!

Our Heritage Lottery Funded 'Laugh it Off' programme will be working with heaps of schools in the lead up to the Festival. Get in touch to find out how you can get involved.

As a part of this year's Doddy Day celebrations we are delighted to be screening this star-studded Exclusive Documentary on the private and public life of Sir Ken Dodd featuring thoughts from his private notebooks - “Happiness is a frame of mind”

THE REAL KEN DODD – The Man I Loved is an exclusive feature documentary film which reveals for the first time the private man behind Britain’s greatest comic genius. Not yet broadcast and 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.

Narrated by Miriam Margolyes, a long-standing fan and friend who got her first big break working with Doddy, the fly-on-the-wall cameras follow Anne as she wrestles to preserve Ken’s enormous comic and musical legacy. Witness Lady Dodd as she embarks on a four-year odyssey to establish Doddy’s lifelong dream to build a British Comedy Museum and begins to understand that if his dream is ever going to happen that is now her job.

Along the way Dodd’s legacy helps create a new Shakespeare Northern Globe theatre and ensures that Ken has become the first comic to have a national museum exhibition celebrating his 70 years bringing “Happiness” to audiences across Britain.

Full of his greatest comic performances, the film lifts the veil on the secrets of the Squire of Knotty Ash and is a must-see for all Doddy fans.

Performance Information

Stalls tickets are available in the stalls with a bowl of Scouse for an extra £3.50. Tickets are available for the show alone in stalls and circle.

If you are bringing a large group, every tenth ticket is free. Please call the box office on 0151 709 4321 to book.

As part of our National Lottery funded project 'Laugh it Off' we've been working with National Museum Liverpool youth groups to curate an exhibition that explores the historical role of humour in Liverpool's resilience.

Variety Lunch Club features the best in local entertainment with a variety of comedians, actors, singers and entertainers. Performers such as Pauline Daniels, Pete Price, Eithne Browne and Sean Styles have already made an appearance and the whole proceedings are compered by one of Liverpool’s brightest comedy stars, Sam Avery.

Expect games, live comedy and laughs aplenty in this Symposium of Laughter! As part of The Comedy Trust's long-running Comedy For Social Change Project in conjunction with Liverpool Hope University, Edge Hill and Salford University, this event will showcase the most exciting elements of this ever-growing project. Past participants will perform, academics will share research and our fabulous comedy MC will keep you entertained.