One of my favourites was when they were talking about films/ movies. Cissie asked Ada is she had ever experienced a ‘Polanski’. Ada,looking embarrassed and rearranging her chest, thought for several seconds before answering ‘ Once nearly….but Bert got cramp in his knees’. I still smile when I remember that one.
Believe it or not he got on very well with his mother in law from his first marriage. After his first wife died of cancer he dropped the mother in law jokes as a mark of respect to his late wife & his mother in law. He married his second wife three years later with whom he had a daughter, unfortunately he died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 62 eight months after his daughter was born. His piano playing was legendary & bloody hilarious. To play the piano out of tune the way he did it took great skill and showed what a good pianist he was. You should look that up next.
When Les does an impersonation of a woman, the mouth movement with no words coming actually out aloud, well Boomer, that stems from back in the day, when women used to work in the cotton and textile mills, and also during the Second World War, in the ammunition factories of the North West of England. The noise in those places was SO LOUD, it was deafening. That was (mouthing the words) the way the women back then communicated to each other. If you like, lip-reading. They got so adept at it, one could communicate to each other across the factory floor.
When being interviewed about his first gigs and asked about how well they went. "The Theatre manager said it was the first time he'd seen a crouching ovation"
I grew up with Les on TV. As a child we used to go to Lytham-St-Annes on many summer's evenings and on one occasion he was giving a piano performance - a delightful surprise. Some of the comedy is dated, but there are classic takes from him. Thanks for a great slice of nostalgia. Ad altiora!
Les was a struggling comic. One night, a bit drunk, and dying on his backside in a club in the fishing town of Hull, he'd had enough. He turned bitterly on his audience. "Thank you for inviting me to this converted fish crate." There was a laugh. He laid into them and they kept laughing. Les Dawson's dour stage persona was born...
Sorry mate , it’s the city of Kingston upon Hull. Only referred to a town by the bbc in wartime as “ A town on the East coast was bombed last night”. I believe the club was down Hesse road the fishing quarter of Hull and they were a right bunch down there. As an eighteen year old conductor I got molested and nearly debagged on the top deck of a number seventy bus by twenty eight fisher women. It scared me stiff at the time but I wouldn’t mind it now. Phil age seventy six.
Actually at the age of 9-11, I was the remote control - my parents would say change the channel to (BBC1, BBC2 or ITV - there were only 3 back then) & my job was to get up, walk the massive 3 yards to the TV & change the channel, it was environmentally very friendly as I didn’t require batteries……🧐😂😂
Les Dawson is a lot cleverer than just doing mother-in-law jokes. Worth checking out other material he did, especially when he played the piano wrong on purpose
The comedy on Radio 4 has always been amongst the best! "Just a minute" and "I'm sorry I haven't a clue" as well as short-run comedy sketch or sit-com type series.
There's another famous line of his that went something like "You could tell she'd arrived, you could hear her in her bedroom listening to her records of Hitler war speeches" 😂😂😂
Funny thing was he actually got on really well with his mother in-law, he loved her dearly, she loved his jokes and would laugh when he told them. Always loved watching Les, he was hilarious, sadly he died in 1993, a very sad loss to comedy, he's a legend. 😂👌🏻 R.I.P Les.
He loved his mother-in-law. The jokes don't bear any relation. It's comedy. You are right. Comedy is dying. In the UK, we actually laugh at jokes directed against us. We understand the context, and the wittier the joke, the more we laugh. Our weapon is to respond accordingly. We know if it's nasty or funny.
Love Les Dawson. I can just about remember watching him host "Blankety Blank" when I was a kid, and even at that age I found him hilarious. He was that kind of comedian. Steve Coogan in his autobiography used Les as an example of someone whose comedy never came from a place of hate, but of love. Unlike many of his contemporaries in the 70s and 80s like Bernard Manning whose humour came from a place of hate.
The amazing thing about Les Dawson was that he and his mother in law got on brilliantly and she loved him to bits. She even loved his jokes! Les Dawson. A brilliant talent, greatly missed.
Another Les Dawson... My mother-in-law decided to join a Lonely Hearts Club. She sent them her photograph. They sent it back. They said, We're not *that* lonely.
Les was so good , his tv career started later after winning a talent show and these are some of the jokes from his club days .He was very talented and clever and got on well with his Mother in law . You need to find a clip of him playing the piano , his gruff delivery was full of extremely well thought out and hilarious jokes and he got better as time passed . So sad to lose him way too early .
EB has also been watching Les in sketches with his pal Roy Barraclough as their characters Cissie and Ada. Very funny as two Northern neighbouring wives and friends, one with aspirations of being posh, the other down-to-Earth and not so world-wise (Les). I saw Les perfom live and he was staying in a local B&B and he told us a story, which he swore was true, that there was a sign on the bathroom door that the toilet must not be used to flush solids! 😗😂
He toured with a group of female dancers called the Rolly Pollys they were all large full figured ladies but despite that all were excellent dancers. The leader a lady named Mo Mowland was about 5 feet tall and about as wide. To see her prancing around on point like a ballerina (where they are on their toes) was a sight to behold.😅 His first wife sadly died and he married a woman in showbusiness. She helped him with his act and said that when on tour with the Rolly Pollys he'd go to their dressing room with hot meat pies and cream cakes saying "here you go girls got to keep your strength up!"
Les Dawson comes from my neck-of-the-woods, Manchester UK. He was one of the funniest men ever. Did you know, back in the day, he was a amateur boxer, an accomplished classical pianist, (see comments below of his "bad piano playing"...HILARIOUS) an author, and, in his early years, was once the pianist in a French brothel. (true.)
I’m old enough to remember Les first time round. I suppose “mother-in-law" jokes are frowned upon nowadays as not being PC but they do still make me laugh. His most graphic description of his MiL was probably “Martin Borman in knickers”
Clip 3. The good old City Varieties concert hall in Leeds. Still in operation to this day. I remember as a kid being dragged along there to see Ken Dodd. I was in a huff as i thought myself too cool and trendy for these old school, unfunny comedians. Never laughed so hard in my life. My sides hurt and my face ached. His show went way beyond its allotted time. We walked out past a long line of punters who were patiently waiting for his next show. Everybody was smiling, knowingly, at each other as they knew this is what Ken Dodd did.
Les Dawson was hilarious and a truly talented comic. He was famous for his mother in law jokes, but in real life was incredibly close to his real mother in law.
As much as Gene Rayburn thought Match Game was a silly idea for a game show, Les Dawson was even less diplomatic about the UK version (Blankety Blank): "the only show with prizes from a fire sale!"
Also, he was an amateur boxer in his youth, and getting his jaw fractured during that time was how he was able to pull his lower lip to his nose like that. Gurning, they call it.
Les absolutely loved language, and his monologues were amazing. A lot of his comedy is probably very dated today, but the best of it is right up there. One monologue of his I remember well is one about a lost explorer in arctic Canada.
Les Dawson was a family must watch when i was a kid. I don't think I've ever heard him repeat a joke . His feelings piano sketch is legendary. As is his Cissie and Ada sketches which you MUST MUST do a reaction to if you havent already.
Les was great, his mother-in-law was his biggest fan and insisted the MIL jokes were included. The thing about the old comics is they tended to have had tough lives, where as today they tend to be university graduates from privileged backgrounds. Les was a bricklayers son from Manchester who worked in packing and as an unsuccessful vacuum cleaner salesman. His humour featured droll downbeat stories featuring his love of florid language. He was a skilled pianist, so good that he could play badly for comic effect. He also did character sketches, most famously in drag as one half of Cissy and Ada. He was at his best playing or talking about older northern women, he had them down pat. The silent mouthing was part of that, women who worked in noisy cotton mills would communicate by lip reading, so mouthing was all they needed, I still remember old women doing it when I was a kid, particularly when saying something not for young ears.
Fun Fact.. The silent Lip movement was what Women who worked in the Very Noisy Mills did in the UK in the Late 1800s to early 1900s, It was so loud they learned to Lip read in order to talk to each other across the Mill Floor,
there was a level of pure honesty and deadpan delivery that was second to none. but you can sometimes see him begin to crack when he was with Roy Barraclough and the giggles try to creep in. 🤣
He 'learned' his trade and his skills around the North of England in the Working Men's Clubs.. and, I'll be honest.. they weren't always the easiest places to even ask for a pint.. ..but Les certainly earned his stripes.. and he won a popularity contest show in the 70s. Good for him
I suspect Mr Dawson actually had a nice relationship with his real mother-in-law, and he’s confected a monster for comedy. Stewart Lee does this talking about his granny and his wife. Les Dawson is mostly celebrated in the UK for his scabrous stories about mothers-in-law, which are splendid works of fiction. Best, Vinny
What a bloody hero Les was. He died on my 18th birthday. Blankety Blank, Cissie and Ada, playing the piano, he was never off the telly when I was growing up, and I bloody love him still. If ever I feel down I watch the very brief YT video of him and Rustie Lee in breakfast tv, and I always end up laughing as much as they are. Les is one of the alltime greats.
You put it very well when you remarked about there being no charm left in comedy. That's very true and could be said about a lot of modern life. BTW have you watched any of the Keeping Up Appearances series? Some great funny scenes in that.
Les was brilliant, especially playing the piano badly. He used to tell his MiL all the jokes before he used them in the set, they got on so well together
Watch Les with Shirley Bassey (Welsh singer, total legend!) - she can barely keep a straight face and by the end, she's laughing her ass off at his jokes!
What you need to look for Boomy - is the same as what Alan has already seen now . . . Les Dawson with Shirley Bassey . . . Freddie Starr with Shirley Bassey . . . I think both videos were from her own TV show . . . The one even he hasn't seen yet, is (M&W) Morecambe & Wise (show) & Shirley Bassey (guest) . . . Although, back then, you weren't classed as being a well known star unless you'd actually been on the M&W Show in those days - so the various celebs were fighting to get on it and have the P taken out of them by the pair . . . As in, look for Andre Previn / The Greig Piano Concerto - or Singing in the Rain - Basically anything from M&W with a guests name on a video will be fine . . .
Nobody could do a better job of playing the piano brilliantly bad.
R.I.P. Les Dawson.
Victor Borge.
He was being interviewed once, and they asked him about his mother-in-law, and it turns out they are the best of friends. He got on very well with her
That's a nice anecdote. Les Dawson was great. Loved his Cissy and Ada sketches.
True, he was distraught when she died and stopped doing mother-in-law jokes but his wife urged him to keep doing them as the mother-in-law loved them.
@@locusmortisalso other mother-in-laws would write to him and ask if he had forgotten about them.
Here's a Les joke; "Very sad at the moment. The wife has ran off with the neighbour next door. Oh, I do miss him !" 😆🤣😆
😂
That comment caught me off guard 😂 laughing out loud here 😂😂😂
I miss Les Dawson, he was class..
Les was a very skilled pianist, playing things wrong in a way that takes a lot of practice.
he was a genius playing off key
I worked for Les Dawson in the 70s. He used to have a piano in his dressing room and played beautifully.
@@beardedmonkey1320 Yeah, someone's got to link him piano sketches.
Very underrated - head and shoulders above 70s comics, bar Dave Allen and Tommy Cooper.
@@musiclover9361 im jealous
Les Dawson playing the piano
Les was just brilliant, especially in drag with Roy Bariclough.
* Barraclough
Yes Aida and Cissy both were brilliant
One of my favourites was when they were talking about films/ movies. Cissie asked Ada is she had ever experienced a ‘Polanski’. Ada,looking embarrassed and rearranging her chest, thought for several seconds before answering ‘ Once nearly….but Bert got cramp in his knees’. I still smile when I remember that one.
Les Dawson singing "Feelings" 🎶 is one of the funniest things I've ever seen.
Les Dawson was epic. Everything used to stop in our house when he was on tv.
🤣
I wouldn't say the mother in law was a big woman but she has a job at Manchester Airport kick starting Jumbo Jets.
Boomer les loved his mother in law and she loved him. They had a good relationship.
My wife can suck start a Harley-Davidson !
I love Les Dawson. He’s one of my all time favourite comedians.
Born in 1931 in Manchester, England, in a place called Collyhurst.
Believe it or not he got on very well with his mother in law from his first marriage.
After his first wife died of cancer he dropped the mother in law jokes as a mark of respect to his late wife & his mother in law.
He married his second wife three years later with whom he had a daughter, unfortunately he died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 62 eight months after his daughter was born.
His piano playing was legendary & bloody hilarious.
To play the piano out of tune the way he did it took great skill and showed what a good pianist he was.
You should look that up next.
His piano playing was hilarious
When Les does an impersonation of a woman, the mouth movement with no words coming actually out aloud, well Boomer, that stems from back in the day, when women used to work in the cotton and textile mills, and also during the Second World War, in the ammunition factories of the North West of England. The noise in those places was SO LOUD, it was deafening. That was (mouthing the words) the way the women back then communicated to each other. If you like, lip-reading. They got so adept at it, one could communicate to each other across the factory floor.
I think you meant adept.
@@SpeccyMan Corrected. Happy now?
It's called mee-mawing.
Happened in the textile mills here in Yorkshire too.
@@noniousxltruffles7454 Of course.
Six men were beating his mother in law up and when asked "shouldn't you help" he said "no, six should be enough" a Les classic for ya.
Love Les! One of my favourites was “she was such a big woman, she got her knickers on prescription”
When being interviewed about his first gigs and asked about how well they went.
"The Theatre manager said it was the first time he'd seen a crouching ovation"
I grew up with Les on TV. As a child we used to go to Lytham-St-Annes on many summer's evenings and on one occasion he was giving a piano performance - a delightful surprise. Some of the comedy is dated, but there are classic takes from him. Thanks for a great slice of nostalgia. Ad altiora!
There is a marvellous little conversation piece at piano with Les and Shirley Bassey. Shirley can hardly keep a straight face.
Our Vera
"The difference between Inlaws and Outlaws is, Outlaws are wanted"
I got a letter from the mother-in-law, it says 'Dear Les, thank you for the piranha fish. They were delicious'
Les was a struggling comic. One night, a bit drunk, and dying on his backside in a club in the fishing town of Hull, he'd had enough. He turned bitterly on his audience.
"Thank you for inviting me to this converted fish crate."
There was a laugh.
He laid into them and they kept laughing. Les Dawson's dour stage persona was born...
Sorry mate , it’s the city of Kingston upon Hull. Only referred to a town by the bbc in wartime as “ A town on the East coast was bombed last night”. I believe the club was down Hesse road the fishing quarter of Hull and they were a right bunch down there. As an eighteen year old conductor I got molested and nearly debagged on the top deck of a number seventy bus by twenty eight fisher women. It scared me stiff at the time but I wouldn’t mind it now. Phil age seventy six.
Les Dawson and Roy Barraclough doing Cisy and Ada, is a fabulous watch.
We had a rental TV when I was a kid (late 1960's, early 70's). It was quite common in the UK.
When a remote control and combi boiler were figments of the imagination.
Actually at the age of 9-11, I was the remote control - my parents would say change the channel to (BBC1, BBC2 or ITV - there were only 3 back then) & my job was to get up, walk the massive 3 yards to the TV & change the channel, it was environmentally very friendly as I didn’t require batteries……🧐😂😂
Les Dawson is a lot cleverer than just doing mother-in-law jokes. Worth checking out other material he did, especially when he played the piano wrong on purpose
Absolutely. As you all know, playing that badly on purpose required him to be a classically trained accomplished pianist beforehand.
Les left us much too early. He was a class act. No one comes close to him, a legend indeed.
Old comedy is all we have. There is no comedy on the BBC now and that was the home of the best British comedy
The comedy on Radio 4 has always been amongst the best!
"Just a minute" and "I'm sorry I haven't a clue" as well as short-run comedy sketch or sit-com type series.
Favourite les joke....shocking news, my mother in law has fallen down a wishing well...I didn't know they worked.
Can choose you're friends.....but not you're relatives! Les...much loved, much missed!
There's another famous line of his that went something like "You could tell she'd arrived, you could hear her in her bedroom listening to her records of Hitler war speeches" 😂😂😂
The fact that you are doing Les fills me with warmth 😊
Les Dawsons "Candle In Cumbria" is one of the best ;)
Have you heard Les playing the piano and inviting people to sing along? MAGIC!
Les Dawson was a comedy legend. He actually got on well with his mother-in- law ! xx
The six should be enough joke is probably my favourite Les Dawson joke, closely followed by the mice throwing themselves on the traps.
Look for Les playing the piano. Also, him with Shirley Bassey.
Thanks for bringing back my seventies childhood. Les Dawson was greatly loved and sorely missed.
His Candle in Cumbria sketch is must watch.
Les. Is such a legend and icon of British comedy. His mil jokes form part of a forever winding monologue.
To me one of the funniest comedians of all time, see if you can catch him playing the piano still has me in tears.
Funny thing was he actually got on really well with his mother in-law, he loved her dearly, she loved his jokes and would laugh when he told them. Always loved watching Les, he was hilarious, sadly he died in 1993, a very sad loss to comedy, he's a legend. 😂👌🏻 R.I.P Les.
He loved his mother-in-law. The jokes don't bear any relation. It's comedy. You are right. Comedy is dying. In the UK, we actually laugh at jokes directed against us. We understand the context, and the wittier the joke, the more we laugh. Our weapon is to respond accordingly. We know if it's nasty or funny.
He did a Sunday show at a theatre I managed in the early 80's. Lovely man and a great entertainer.
Love Les Dawson. I can just about remember watching him host "Blankety Blank" when I was a kid, and even at that age I found him hilarious. He was that kind of comedian. Steve Coogan in his autobiography used Les as an example of someone whose comedy never came from a place of hate, but of love. Unlike many of his contemporaries in the 70s and 80s like Bernard Manning whose humour came from a place of hate.
The best British humour is based on irony. Les was such a class act. Much missed.
You gotta do Les Dawson playing the piano.... classic genius!! 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿
The amazing thing about Les Dawson was that he and his mother in law got on brilliantly and she loved him to bits. She even loved his jokes!
Les Dawson. A brilliant talent, greatly missed.
Another Les Dawson... My mother-in-law decided to join a Lonely Hearts Club. She sent them her photograph. They sent it back. They said, We're not *that* lonely.
Les Dawson playing the piano is legendary it's so brilliant.
Les Dawson's best Mother in law joke was " The Mother in Law's just got a new job at Manchester Airport .... She's kick starting Jumbo Jets "
Les Dawsons Sissy & Aida. Comedy gold! Miss you Les. Xx
My favourite of his was "when my mother in law was born they fired 21 guns. Sadly, they all missed."
Les was so good , his tv career started later after winning a talent show and these are some of the jokes from his club days .He was very talented and clever and got on well with his Mother in law . You need to find a clip of him playing the piano , his gruff delivery was full of extremely well thought out and hilarious jokes and he got better as time passed . So sad to lose him way too early .
Great video 👍 Les Dawson old school comedian talking about old school social convensations,but he has a big catalogue of material.😊
Watch him play the piano, he’s a genius.
EB has also been watching Les in sketches with his pal Roy Barraclough as their characters Cissie and Ada. Very funny as two Northern neighbouring wives and friends, one with aspirations of being posh, the other down-to-Earth and not so world-wise (Les).
I saw Les perfom live and he was staying in a local B&B and he told us a story, which he swore was true, that there was a sign on the bathroom door that the toilet must not be used to flush solids! 😗😂
OMG - another underrated British comedy genius. Saw him recording Dawson Watch once at the BBC in London - school trip.
He toured with a group of female dancers called the Rolly Pollys they were all large full figured ladies but despite that all were excellent dancers.
The leader a lady named Mo Mowland was about 5 feet tall and about as wide.
To see her prancing around on point like a ballerina (where they are on their toes) was a sight to behold.😅
His first wife sadly died and he married a woman in showbusiness. She helped him with his act and said that when on tour with the Rolly Pollys he'd go to their dressing room with hot meat pies and cream cakes saying "here you go girls got to keep your strength up!"
"No, six of them should be enough". My favourite Les joke.
Another great comic passed on to the stage in the clouds.
Les Dawson comes from my neck-of-the-woods, Manchester UK. He was one of the funniest men ever. Did you know, back in the day, he was a amateur boxer, an accomplished classical pianist, (see comments below of his "bad piano playing"...HILARIOUS) an author, and, in his early years, was once the pianist in a French brothel. (true.)
I am not a Pianist, classical or otherwise, never boxed or written anything worth publishing but I have worked in a Brothel so 1 out of 4 isn't bad:)
I’m old enough to remember Les first time round. I suppose “mother-in-law" jokes are frowned upon nowadays as not being PC but they do still make me laugh. His most graphic description of his MiL was probably “Martin Borman in knickers”
he,s really good on the piano , worth a watch .. in my opinion he was one of thee greatest comedians of the 70,s
Omg Les Dawson was a genius. My favourite all time comedian
Hello King, you need to look at Les with Shirley Bassey & also Les appearing in the Royal Variety Show. You'd also like A Candle in Cumbria.
He had wonderful relationship with his mother in law. He used to run the jokes past her before he used them. She even encouraged him.
My own mother in law was one of the greatest people you could ever meet. She also used to laugh hysterically at Les Dawson's MIL jokes.
7:02 “He’s big” er, I think he was about 5’2”
Clip 3. The good old City Varieties concert hall in Leeds. Still in operation to this day.
I remember as a kid being dragged along there to see Ken Dodd. I was in a huff as i thought myself too cool and trendy for these old school, unfunny comedians. Never laughed so hard in my life. My sides hurt and my face ached. His show went way beyond its allotted time. We walked out past a long line of punters who were patiently waiting for his next show. Everybody was smiling, knowingly, at each other as they knew this is what Ken Dodd did.
In the uk we had to rent TVs back in the day 😂😂 only the rich could afford a bought and paid for 😂
Les Dawson was hilarious and a truly talented comic. He was famous for his mother in law jokes, but in real life was incredibly close to his real mother in law.
As much as Gene Rayburn thought Match Game was a silly idea for a game show, Les Dawson was even less diplomatic about the UK version (Blankety Blank): "the only show with prizes from a fire sale!"
Also, he was an amateur boxer in his youth, and getting his jaw fractured during that time was how he was able to pull his lower lip to his nose like that. Gurning, they call it.
Les’s endless battles with his mother in law was English TV comedy gold.
Les Dawson, British legend 😁❤️❤️❤️
@KingBoomer - Please take a look at Norman Collier. He was one of my favourites back in the day. 👀
You definitely need to watch him playing piano, it's brilliantly funny and clever!
Les absolutely loved language, and his monologues were amazing. A lot of his comedy is probably very dated today, but the best of it is right up there. One monologue of his I remember well is one about a lost explorer in arctic Canada.
Les Dawson was a family must watch when i was a kid. I don't think I've ever heard him repeat a joke .
His feelings piano sketch is legendary.
As is his Cissie and Ada sketches which you MUST MUST do a reaction to if you havent already.
A great comedian! Not a bad actor either!
Les was great, his mother-in-law was his biggest fan and insisted the MIL jokes were included. The thing about the old comics is they tended to have had tough lives, where as today they tend to be university graduates from privileged backgrounds. Les was a bricklayers son from Manchester who worked in packing and as an unsuccessful vacuum cleaner salesman. His humour featured droll downbeat stories featuring his love of florid language. He was a skilled pianist, so good that he could play badly for comic effect. He also did character sketches, most famously in drag as one half of Cissy and Ada. He was at his best playing or talking about older northern women, he had them down pat. The silent mouthing was part of that, women who worked in noisy cotton mills would communicate by lip reading, so mouthing was all they needed, I still remember old women doing it when I was a kid, particularly when saying something not for young ears.
Les playing the piano is hilarious.
That UA-cam play plaque looks well deserved. ❤️❤️🤘🏻
He can pull funny faces because he broke his jaw boxing when he was younger.
Fun Fact.. The silent Lip movement was what Women who worked in the Very Noisy Mills did in the UK in the Late 1800s to early 1900s, It was so loud they learned to Lip read in order to talk to each other across the Mill Floor,
Cotton mill worker’s miming each word. Then would do it when they were speaking about gossip and other people.
Les Dawson a good old fashioned comedian with great funny jokes.
there was a level of pure honesty and deadpan delivery that was second to none.
but you can sometimes see him begin to crack when he was with Roy Barraclough and the giggles try to creep in. 🤣
He 'learned' his trade and his skills around the North of England in the Working Men's Clubs.. and, I'll be honest.. they weren't always the easiest places to even ask for a pint..
..but Les certainly earned his stripes.. and he won a popularity contest show in the 70s. Good for him
Talking about his early career in working men’s clubs in Hull. “Here I am in this kipperdepot”
I suspect Mr Dawson actually had a nice relationship with his real mother-in-law, and he’s confected a monster for comedy. Stewart Lee does this talking about his granny and his wife. Les Dawson is mostly celebrated in the UK for his scabrous stories about mothers-in-law, which are splendid works of fiction. Best, Vinny
You are correct, they got on very well.
I loved Les, Sad day when he died, too young at that.
Look out for his Cissie and Ada. Hilarious!
What a bloody hero Les was. He died on my 18th birthday. Blankety Blank, Cissie and Ada, playing the piano, he was never off the telly when I was growing up, and I bloody love him still. If ever I feel down I watch the very brief YT video of him and Rustie Lee in breakfast tv, and I always end up laughing as much as they are. Les is one of the alltime greats.
Calling Shirley Bassey our Vera was fine.
ua-cam.com/video/BfxkPIOOCl4/v-deo.htmlsi=AbAkeqjjW1IKGZkj
Les Dawson was one of those comedians that could make you laugh without saying a word.
Les piano playing always got me, and all his gag pianos too.
You put it very well when you remarked about there being no charm left in comedy. That's very true and could be said about a lot of modern life. BTW have you watched any of the Keeping Up Appearances series? Some great funny scenes in that.
My favourite Les Dawson mother in law joke. The difference between my mother in law and a terrorist is you can negotiate with a terrorist.
He did boxing when younger 😊
Les was brilliant, especially playing the piano badly. He used to tell his MiL all the jokes before he used them in the set, they got on so well together
Les Dawson - the lugubrious British Comedian
When he dresses up as a shawl-woman with his friend, that's my favourite.
Cissy and Ada with Roy Barraclough.
They were hilarious, they were so like some of the women around in those days 😊
Watch Les with Shirley Bassey (Welsh singer, total legend!) - she can barely keep a straight face and by the end, she's laughing her ass off at his jokes!
What you need to look for Boomy - is the same as what Alan has already seen now . . . Les Dawson with Shirley Bassey . . . Freddie Starr with Shirley Bassey . . . I think both videos were from her own TV show . . . The one even he hasn't seen yet, is (M&W) Morecambe & Wise (show) & Shirley Bassey (guest) . . . Although, back then, you weren't classed as being a well known star unless you'd actually been on the M&W Show in those days - so the various celebs were fighting to get on it and have the P taken out of them by the pair . . . As in, look for Andre Previn / The Greig Piano Concerto - or Singing in the Rain - Basically anything from M&W with a guests name on a video will be fine . . .
Les was a great act, great wordsmith and storyteller😂