Alistair Hardaker | Image: (l-r) Kari Singleton, Showtown Learning & Engagement Manager; Lady Dodd; Spencer Phillips; Jill Carruthers, Showtown Head of Heritage (Martin Bostock Photography)
Street renamed after comedian following Showtown’s June opening of Happiness! The Ken Dodd Exhibition.
Blackpool’s Showtown museum has renamed the street on which it sits after late comedy legend Sir Ken Dodd.
The museum, which sits at the intersection of Adelaide St West in Blackpool, has been renamed Sir Ken Dodd Avenue as a tribute to the comedian.
The new street was officially unveiled by Dodd’s wife Anne, Lady Dodd, on Monday 21 September. It follows the museum’s official opening of Happiness! The Ken Dodd Exhibition in June.
Showtown lodged the official request with Blackpool Council to change the name in recognition of the comedian’s work in and contribution to Blackpool’s comedy heritage. Dodd’s time performing in the seaside town, as well as switching on the Blackpool Illuminations in 1966 and helping save Blackpool Grand Theatre in the 1970s.
Dodd also opened Blackpool’s Comedy Carpet in 2011, a public art installation featuring a floor of jokes and catchphrases from the many comedians who had worked in the town.
Spencer Phillips, chairman of the Blackpool Heritage and Museum Trust, which operates Showtown, said: “There couldn’t be a more fitting tribute to Sir Ken Dodd than to give him his own avenue right outside Showtown.
“We’re absolutely delighted that visitors arriving at Showtown can now quite literally walk down Sir Ken Dodd Avenue and into an exhibition celebrating his incredible life, career and connection with Blackpool. “
Leader of Blackpool Council and Cabinet Member for Tourism, Arts and Culture, Cllr Lynn Williams, added: “Ken Dodd brought so much happiness to Blackpool and to generations of our visitors, so it feels right that his name should now be part of the town itself.”
