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.
Rising to fame amid the 1980s alternative comedy boom, Ian Cognito was one of the UK's most popular comedians. His performances left audiences in hysterics - but behind the laughter was a troubled and often controversial figure. This is the story of the comedy scene that nurtured a comedic genius, and the real life of a man famed for his outlandish sense of humour.
Shaparak "Shappi" Khorsandi is a British comedian and author of Iranian origin. The daughter of the Iranian political satirist and poet Hadi Khorsandi, her family left Iran when she was a child following the Islamic Revolution. In January 2016, she became president of Humanists UK, and became vice-president in 2019.