This hanging card advertises the stand-up comedian Ken Dodd's appearance at the Empire Theatre Glasgow, one of the theatres in the Moss Empires Group, whose managing director Prince Littler specialised in producing musical and variety theatre. Despite the quality of the performers, a Glasgow audience was usually a challenge, especially the second house, which began at 8.40pm.

Ken Dodd (b.1927) learned his trade in music hall and variety, starting out in 1952 in Liverpool as a member of Don Ellis's Fairfield Concert Party, and topping the bill two years later at the Hull Palace as 'the North's New Star Comedian'. He worked on radio and the variety theatre circuit during the 1950s, becoming a well-paid performer with star billing by the mid 1950s. His ability to improvise on stage was extraordinary and led to his soubriquet 'Ken Dodd the Unpredictable'.

His first break in pantomime came at the Bradford Alhambra in 1959, and he became widely known through television in the 1960s where his 'Diddy Men' and 'Tickling Stick' became trademarks of his act. Dodd had hugely admired the northern comics of the 1940s, of whom he once said: 'I think they left me to switch the light off. I am the last one. They've all gone. Frank Randle, Norman Evans. Max Miller. They're my heroes. They're my boys.'