Aged 18, he began working as a travelling salesman, and used his work van to travel to comedy clubs in the evenings. He gained his big break at age 26 when, in September 1954, he made his professional show-business debut as Professor Yaffle Chucklebutty, Operatic Tenor and Sausage Knotter at the Nottingham Empire. He later said, "Well at least they didn't boo me off". He continued to tour variety theatres up and down the UK, and in 1955 he appeared at Blackpool, where, in the following year, he had a part in "Let's Have Fun". His performance at the Central Pier was part of a comedy revue with Jimmy James and Company. Also on the same bill were Jimmy Clitheroe and Roy Castle. Dodd first gained top billing at Blackpool in 1958. Dodd was described as "the last great music hall entertainer". His stand-up comedy style was fast and relied on the rapid delivery of one-liner jokes. He said that his comic influences included other Liverpool comedians like Arthur Askey, Robb Wilton, Tommy Handley and the "cheeky chappy" from Brighton, Max Miller. He interspersed the comedy with occasional songs, both serious and humorous, in an incongruously fine light baritone voice, and with his original speciality, ventriloquism. Part of his stage act featured the Diddy Men ("diddy" being local slang for "small"). At first an unseen joke conceived as part of Dodd's imagination, they later appeared on stage, usually played by children. Dodd worked mainly as a solo comedian, including in a number of eponymous television and radio shows and made several appearances on BBC TV's music hall revival show, "The Good Old Days". Although he enjoyed making people laugh, he was also a serious student of comedy and history, and was interested in Sigmund Freud and Henri Bergson's analysis of humour. Occasionally, he appeared in dramatic roles, including Malvolio in William Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night" on stage in Liverpool in 1971; on television in the cameo role of 'The Tollmaster' in the 1987 "Doctor Who" story "Delta and the Bannermen"; as Yorick (in silent flashback) in Kenneth Branagh's film version of Shakespeare's "Hamlet" in 1996; and as Mr. Mouse in the 1999 television movie adaptation of "Alice in Wonderland". Marking Dodd's 90th birthday, a fulsome appreciation by "Guardian" theatre critic Michael Billington noted that "Ken has done just about everything: annual Blackpool summer seasons, pantomimes, nationwide tours, TV and radio.