Les Dawson (2 February 1931, Collyhurst, Manchester, Lancashire - 10 June 1993) was a popular English comedian, known for his deadpan style and curmudgeonly persona, and famous for jokes about his mother-in-law and wife. is the 33rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1931 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Collyhurst is an inner-city area north of the city centre of Manchester, in north west England. ... This article is about the City of Manchester in England. ... Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England, bounded to the west by the Irish Sea. ... is the 161st day of the year (162nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1993 Gregorian calendar). ... , Whalley Range is a locality within the City of Manchester, in North West England. ... This article is about the City of Manchester in England. ... Heart attack redirects here. ... is the 33rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1931 (MCMXXXI) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1931 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Collyhurst is an inner-city area north of the city centre of Manchester, in north west England. ... This article is about the City of Manchester in England. ... Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England, bounded to the west by the Irish Sea. ... is the 161st day of the year (162nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1993 (MCMXCIII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full 1993 Gregorian calendar). ... For other uses, see England (disambiguation). ... For the documentary about Jerry Seinfeld, see Comedian (film). ... Although humour and jokes about ones mother-in-law (the mother of ones spouse) are nowadays considered politically incorrect, they were once the mainstay of British comedians such as Les Dawson and Jim Davidson. ...

Life and career

Raised in the Collyhurst district of Manchester, Dawson began his entertainment career as a club pianist ("I finally heard some applause from a bald man and said 'thank you for clapping me' and he said 'I'm not clapping - I'm slapping me head to keep awake.'"); but found that he got more laughs by playing wrong notes and complaining to the audience.

He made his television debut in the talent show Opportunity Knocks in 1967 and was seldom absent from British television screens in the years that followed. Opportunity Knocks was a UK television talent show originally hosted by Hughie Greene. ...

His best-known routines featured Roy Barraclough and Dawson as two elderly women, Cissie Braithwaite and Ada Shufflebotham. Cissie had pretensions of refinement and often corrected Ada's malapropisms or vulgar expressions. As authentic characters of their day, they spoke some words aloud but only mouthed others, particularly those pertaining to bodily functions and sex. No respectable woman would have said, for instance, "She's having a hysterectomy." Instead they would have mouthed, "She's having women's troubles."(Dawson's character, of course, mistakenly said "hysterical rectomy.") These female characters were based on those Les Dawson knew in real life. He explained that this mouthing of words was a habit of millworkers trying to communicate over the tremendous racket of the looms, and then resorted to in daily life for indelicate subjects. To further portray the reality of northern, working-class women, Cissie and Ada would sit with folded arms, occasionally adjusting their bosoms by a hoist of the forearms. This was also typical of pantomime dame style, an act copied faithfully from his hero, Norman Evans, who had made famous his act Over The Garden Wall. Roy Barraclough MBE (born 12 July 1935), born in Preston, Lancashire, is a comic actor. ... This article or section seems to contain too many examples (or examples of poor quality) for an encyclopedia entry. ... For other uses, see Pantomime (disambiguation). ... Norman Evans (1901-1962) was a variety and radio artiste, born in Rochdale, Lancashire, who developed an act as a toothless hatchet faced woman gossiping over a fence, an act copied by Les Dawson. ...

Les Dawson was of portly build and often dressed in the traditional 'John Bull' of England costume. He introduced to his BBC TV shows a dancing group of very fat ladies called the Roly Polys. He loved to undercut his own fondness for high culture. For example, he was a talented pianist but developed a gag where he would begin to play a familiar piece such as Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. After he had established the identity of the piece being performed, Dawson would introduce hideously wrong notes without appearing to realise that he had done so, meanwhile smiling unctuously and apparently relishing the accuracy and soul of his own performance. He also used a grand piano in a series of sketches where it became animated, for example, trying to walk away from him across the stage, collapsing or shutting its lid etc. World War I recruiting poster An earlier John Bull in which he is depicted as an actual bull. ... “Beethoven” redirects here. ... Ludwig van Beethovens opus 27 no. ...

Dawson's style as a comic performer was world-weary, lugubrious and earthy. He was as popular with female as with male audiences, and genuinely loved by the British public. A news reporter from The Sun looking for him after a show to interview him found him joking with and making some cleaning women laugh backstage. This article is about a British tabloid. ...

Before his fame Dawson wrote poetry and kept it secret. It was not expected that someone of his working class background should harbour literary ambitions. In a BBC TV documentary about his life, he spoke about his life for some canonical figures in English literature, in particular Charles Lamb, whose somewhat florid style influenced Dawson's own^{[citation needed]}.

His love of language influenced many of his comedy routines - for example one otherwise fairly routine joke began with the line "I was vouchsafed this vision by a pockmarked Lascar in the arms of a frump in a Huddersfield bordello...". He was also a master of painting a beautiful word picture and then letting the audience down with a bump: "The other day I was gazing up at the night sky, a purple vault fretted with a myriad points of light twinkling in wondrous formation, while shooting stars streaked across the heavens, and I thought: I really must repair the roof on this toilet."

Dawson wrote many novels but was always regarded solely as an entertainer in the public imagination, and this saddened him. He told this second wife, Tracey, "Always remind them - I was a writer too."

Having broken his jaw in a boxing match, Dawson was able to pull grotesque faces by pulling his jaw over his upper lip.^{[citation needed]} For other meanings of these words, see boxing (disambiguation) or boxer (disambiguation). ...

His first wife, Margaret, died on 15 April 1986 from cancer. They had had three children ; Julie, Pamela and Stuart. He later married Tracy on 6 May 1989, despite worries that his showbusiness contemporaries and the public would object, as she was 20 years younger. They eventually had a daughter, Charlotte who was born on 3 October 1992. is the 105th day of the year (106th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar). ... Cancer is a class of diseases or disorders characterized by uncontrolled division of cells and the ability of these to spread, either by direct growth into adjacent tissue through invasion, or by implantation into distant sites by metastasis (where cancer cells are transported through the bloodstream or lymphatic system). ... is the 126th day of the year (127th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1989 (MCMLXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays 1989 Gregorian calendar). ... is the 276th day of the year (277th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1992 Gregorian calendar). ...

Dawson starred in a radio sketch show Listen to Les, which was broadcast on BBC Radio 2 during the 1970s and 1980s. Television series in which he appeared included Sez Les, "The Dawson Watch", The Les Dawson Show, Dawson's Weekly, Joker's Wild and the quiz show Blankety Blank, which he presented for some years. His final TV appearance was on the LWT Series Surprise Surprise hosted by Cilla Black, when he sang a comical rendition of "I Got You Babe" with a woman from the audience who wanted to fulfill a wish to sing with him. Listen to Les double cassette cover, 1993 Listen to Les was a long-running comedy sketch show on BBC Radio 2 starring Les Dawson. ... BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBCs national radio stations and is by far the most popular station in the UK, reaching some 27% of the available audience in 2006[1]. It broadcasts throughout the UK on FM radio between 88 and 91 MHz from its studios in... Host Barry Cryer on Jokers Wild Jokers Wild was a U.K. comedy panel game that was produced by Yorkshire Television and aired for eight series on ITV from 1969 to 1974. ... Blankety Blank was a British game show based on the American game show Match Game. ...

Death

On 10th June 1993, during a check-up at a hospital in Whalley Range, Manchester, Les Dawson died suddenly after suffering a heart attack. Many comedians and other celebrities attended a memorial service for him at Westminster Abbey. For the town in the Republic of Ireland, see Hospital, County Limerick. ... , Whalley Range is a locality within the City of Manchester, in North West England. ... Heart attack redirects here. ... Underwater funeral in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea A funeral is a ceremony marking a persons death. ... The Collegiate Church of St Peter, Westminster, which is almost always referred to by its original name of Westminster Abbey, is a mainly Gothic church, on the scale of a cathedral (and indeed often mistaken for one), in Westminster, London, just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. ...

Trivia

• In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted amongst the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.
• In 1989 Dawson, in a state of obvious distress, left his dressing room at the Sunderland Empire Theatre, vowing never to work in the building again. He never gave a reason why nor revealed what had caused him to panic; however the building is reputedly haunted by the ghost of actor Sid James^[1].

The Sunderland Empire Theatre is located in High Street West in Sunderland. ... Sid James Sid James (8 May 1913–26 April 1976) was a film and television actor. ...

Books

• A Clown Too Many (autobiography, 1986)
• No Tears for a Clown (autobiography, 1992)

• Hitler Was My Mother-in-Law
• Well Fared, My Lovely
• Come Back with the Wind
• The Blade and the Passion
• Card for the Clubs
• Malady Lingers on and Other Great Groaners
• Les Dawson's Lancashire
• A Time Before Genesis
• Les Dawson Gives Up
• Cosmo Smallpiece Guide to Male Liberation

Year 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar). ... Year 1992 (MCMXCII) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display full 1992 Gregorian calendar). ...

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Les Dawson

• Tribute website Run by his widow Tracy Dawson, and their good friend and colleague Mo Moreland
• Fan website including quotes from Les Dawson.
• Les Dawson at the Internet Movie Database

Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... Wikiquote is one of a family of wiki-based projects run by the Wikimedia Foundation, running on MediaWiki software. ... The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is an online database of information about movies, actors, television shows, production crew personnel, and video games. ...

References