Les Dawson Talking Comedy

Les Dawson was the rubber-faced comedy master who started his career

cracking one-liners and playing the piano on the northern club circuit.

He found national fame in the late '60s on the television talent show

Opportunity Knocks, and from that moment on,

he had the British public laughing.

Les looked funny, and he was funny, instinctively so.

Interviewers over the years would struggle to get a serious word

out of him. One who tried was Michael Parkinson.

So, let's begin with a look at Parkie cracking up over

territory that Les excelled in -

laughter over language barriers and the classic mother-in-law joke.

-You've done some work recently in Germany, haven't you?

-Oh...

LAUGHTER

Did you have to learn German for it or...?

-Yeah, I tried.

-You tried?

-Yeah.

But...how do you get the gags over?

Well, that was the difficult part of it

because when we got there...

Before the show was actually due to go, two of us went to try

and suss the scene out to see what they wanted.

And the German mentality is something I had never previously

come across because it's all...

You know, faces really like flint.

You know, no... Really hard. Unyielding.

So they had a girl there with braided hair, you know,

looked a bit like Danny La Rue. Awful.

And she sat there and she said...

IN GERMAN ACCENT: "You tell me what you're going to do, which is funny."

"And I will tell all mein colleagues round the table."

So, in this atmosphere, I said,

"Well, the first thing we'd like to do is there is a man sweeping

"the streets." She said...

IMITATES GERMAN TRANSLATION: "Und man fastrausen sveiten wit da broomen."

They all went, "Ja, ja, ja..."

I said, "He looks one way." And this is what broke me. She said...

IMITATES GERMAN: "Man who looks ein fart."

LAUGHTER

Which is... HE LAUGHS

..which is German for one way. LAUGHTER

And I said, "He then looks the other way." She said...

IMITATES GERMAN: "Eins fart vie fart ubstrauss..."

SPEECH DROWNED OUT BY LAUGHTER

I said, "He then lifts up the pavement

"and brushes the dirt underneath it."

And there was a silence like the forgotten tomb.

And she said... IN GERMAN ACCENT: "I think I should tell you

"that in Germany, the pavements don't lift up."

LAUGHTER Terrible!

Oh...

Oh...

-Frightening, really was frightening.

-How did you survive it?

-Only just?

-Yeah, we got through, actually.

In fact... It's considered a mountainous area.

They called it... You know, they're named after a mountain flower

over there - the edelswine. LAUGHTER

No, it went quite well.

They put a top course on the Berlin Wall after that.

-It really was frightening, it really was.

-Yeah.

Because there... I mean, to tell a joke

about the mother-in-law's brassiere...

When I do a joke, I say, "I'm not saying she's a big woman,

"but when she hangs her bras up to dry, a camel makes love to it."

LAUGHTER

In German...

In German, this comes out like...

IMITATES GERMAN: "Dies fies un wutas bustenhuten,

"mitsa ain with a und feinfendersun."

LAUGHTER

By the time you've said it, you've forgotten the bloody thing.

-LAUGHTER

-What's your mother-in-law...

-I mean, you've got a mother-in-law, haven't you?

-Oh, yeah.

She's...

MICHAEL LAUGHS, LES SIGHS

She's very nice, actually.

She's very nice. She's got a face like a bag of spanners.

LAUGHTER

-Oh, good...

-She once went for a swim in Loch Ness

and the monster got out and picketed the lake.

LAUGHTER

-LAUGHING:

-What does she...what does she think, though, about you?

-I mean, does she...

-HE CRACKS UP

Does she think you are a loving son-in-law?

Oh, we... We get on ver... Really. Very well together.

When we stay at her house, you know,

which is decorated in early Dracula...

LAUGHTER

..she knows that I am personally very fond of pets.

And you can bet your life when I go to bed every night,

there's always a black widow spider in the corner.

LAUGHTER She is a very big woman, you know?

She has her knickers on a prescription.

LAUGHTER

-LAUGHING:

-Be serious for a...

Be serious...

-Daffy.

-Daft. It is daft. It's lovely.

LAUGHTER

-That was old... Who was that? That was old Norman...

-Norman Evans.

-Norman Evans, yeah.

-You see, one of the beautiful things about...

On the last series, we introduced these two old women in a launderette.

But it is something peculiar to Lancashire the fact that

when two women talk particularly of that age group,

if there is anything at all which they consider risque or something...

comparable to the female body,

-they never finish the sentence.

-Hm.

You see... So, you'll get...

How are... How's things?

I'm... HE MOUTHS

I believe she's near her time.

Oh, yes.

I believe she had a... MOUTHS: stroke.

LAUGHTER

And they never finish the sentence!

LAUGHTER

It was really most peculiar, and they used to get things mixed up.

I may quote one thing that Peter Maloney from Liverpool thought.

-It's very true.

-Oh, he's a funny man.

About the woman in hospital and the chap said, "How are you?"

She said, "I've been very ill, you know?" MOUTHS: Very ill.

She said, "That was my time of life...

HE MOUTHS, LAUGHTER

He said, "It's a very serious operation.

"It's called a hysterical rectum." LAUGHTER

Beautiful, isn't it? HE LAUGHS

-It does you good to have a laugh.

-Hey!

LAUGHTER

The pleasure in watching Les Dawson wasn't just about the jokes.

There was also the sound of his sentences

and the way he used words like a human thesaurus.

He discussed this in a programme from 1977 called Word For Word

with interviewer Vicky Payne.

Noel Coward made Clapham funny.

Private Eye made Neasden funny.

King George VI made Bognor funny.

but could anyone raise a laugh by saying London? And if not, why not?

Les Dawson has some theories.

Les Dawson, do you indeed have theories?

Why do we, perhaps, laugh at words or place names like Neasden or

-Dollis Hill?

-I think it's the softness of the word in question.

London is a very soft word. It's a very soft sound, therefore it's...

it's more of a tenderness almost.

There's a fondness about saying London or Landand.

If you say Ormskirk,

it's Descartes, straight to the point. Ormskirk.

Goole - you can't soften Goole.

So, if you want to build any sort of line on, say, Goole,

you wouldn't say, "He was an ex-religious leader from London."

It wouldn't sound very funny.

But if you said, "He was a lapsed Methodist from Goole,"

then it starts become funny.

Do people in the North laugh at places in the South

and do we in the South laugh at places in the North?

Oh, I should think so, yeah.

We find Watford seems a fairly strange name.

I fell in love with... You know, with a...

I used to do a gag where I used to... I went...

I met the wife at a discount store in Watford.

I went in for a lampshade and I said, "What do you take off for cash?"

She said, "Everything but my earrings."

What about individual...

It's not true... SHE LAUGHS

What about individual words as opposed to place names?

Can individual words be intrinsically funny on their own?

Oh, yeah. For instance, a marvellous description of a dirty pond -

so I threw the stick into the depths

and the smell that emerged was positively mauve.

And it summed it all up.

You obviously think very hard about the gag itself

and about the punchline.

Do you think equally hard about the order in which you put

the words to achieve the best effect?

Oh, yes, this can happen...

I used to do a gag in the act which never got a laugh.

I forget how I used to word it properly now,

but I used to say, "I wouldn't say my father was lazy,

"but during the hunger march from Jarrow in the '30s,

"he was the only one singing." The way I used put it before,

"He used to sing when he was unemployed," so I just switched

the thing round and got more of a laugh.

And by the same token, do we laugh at the same words in the South as...

-Oh, yes.

-..in the North?

-Oh, you are slightly more...

-You're getting educated down here. It's quite true.

-Thank you very much.

Oh, you are, definitely. It's on the increase.

You wouldn't alter your act according to whether you were

playing in the North or the South?

No, I die in the North and the South equally as well as the other.

Makes no difference to me.

Going back to names, we mentioned place names, do you think

individual Christian names are funny?

Or surnames or names together?

Well, yes, I think, you know, you can say, for instance,

that our love affair was born on the shores of Geneva as the sunlight

dappled the waters into fragmentations of patterns

and I turned to Miriam... And you know, I think the word Miriam

after this build-up... HE MUTTERS

Probably some very nice Miriams in Ealing.

I wouldn't know, but I think that sort of thing, yeah.

They are not meant to be terribly funny.

It's the ring, the connotation you put them in

or the situation you put them in.

Les Dawson, thank you very much indeed for...

-Will you send the check on?

-I'll send the check on.

That's a very funny word at the BBC.

..for coming on to us. Thank you very much.

Been a pleasure to be in this cupboard.

By the mid-'80s, Dawson was well-established as one

of the nation's favourite entertainers, which made him

the perfect guest for Roy Plomley's television version

of Desert Island Discs called Favourite Things

and here he is discussing the origins of his routine

and his love of writing.

Where did you spend your childhood, Les? Where do you come from?

-Originally, Manchester.

-Hm.

Yes, it was hard childhood in many ways.

Mainly because, although it's difficult for you,

I know, looking at this magnificent profile,

but oddly enough, I was an incredibly ugly baby.

In fact, I was so ugly,

they had to give the midwife gas and air before she delivered me.

My own mother used to look at me often in the cot

and she'd say to my father, "I don't know what to make of him,"

and my father used to say, "Have you thought of a rug?"

But basically we were a poor, but poverty-stricken family.

-You had an ambition to write.

-Yeah.

What did you want to write?

Er, essays.

-Why essays, Les?

-I don't know. I liked words.

I think the only one I was ever proud...

I went to Paris to write them.

I used to want to write things in the vein like Elia, Lamb,

or something like this. You know, lovely prose, sort of thing.

Or, "Frost hanging delicately from sodden leaves,"

or something like this, you know?

Tell me about Paris. You wanted to have a sort of Left Bank existence.

Well, I thought Paris was the place to gravitate to.

I mean, it's not really. If you're going to write a novel,

you should do it in Bradford because there are too many distractions

-in Paris, you know?

-How long were you there?

-About 18 months, actually.

Why did you come back? Why did you leave Paris?

I was broke.

Is Paris a favourite thing you go back to?

Oh, I think Paris is a lovely city, yeah.

To me, it's like a spoilt woman, Paris, you know?

-I love Paris. It's very nice.

-Hm.

-It's wasted on the French totally.

So, you'd done some piano playing in the army and in Paris,

when did comicking come into it?

Well, I used to play on the piano and sing

and tell a few gags especially when I sang and played the piano.

The act in those days was dreadful. I mean, it really was.

-Would you like to see a little gobbet, would you?

-I'd love to, yes.

-What did you do?

-Well, this is...

You sat yourself at the piano?

Well, I found it more comfortable that way.

And this was the sort of thing I used to do.

"Hi..." With this terrible grimace,

with all the fillings showing.

Cos I've got quite a few fillings, you know?

-In fact, my gums have got metal fatigue.

-Oh, yes.

And I go "Hi there! I just love being here, ladies and gentlemen.

"I'm going to play you a little song and I hope you like it."

HE SINGS INCOHERENTLY

-And I used to get paid off.

-Yes, I can...

-Quite regularly.

-Mm-hm.

And then after that, I was living in London for quite some time.

I was living in a cubicle with a plug point that passed as a flat.

And I went round to all the clubs and so and all the agents

and got the usual thing, you know, "We'll let you know."

"We'll ring you," which was hard to do cos I ain't got a phone.

That didn't dawn on me for months after.

And I went to see an agent - Al Heath, his name was,

and he still is in existence.

-And he gave me a week's booking for 16 quid in Hull.

-Yes.

-Have you ever been to Hull?

-Doing that same act?

-Yes.

-Yes.

-Totally.

To all of these hardened fisherfolk.

Men with salt creased into the lines of their faces. Hard men.

And on I went, "I just want to say what a great pleasure to be in Hull.

"I had been here before, but it was shut."

-See? Which got roars of silence.

-Of course.

You know, I was getting crouching ovations.

And on the Wednesday, it began to dawn on me

that by this time, failure was a stark reality.

Really fail. I mean, I was lucky.

I mean, my only ambition in those days were for luxuries in life,

like bread in my shoes.

You know, I think it was getting worse. And on the Thursday...

I did the time-honoured mistake,

although in this case it worked, of going for a few drinks.

-And I drank more than I should have done.

-Right.

This is before your show?

And that night at the piano,

"It's a great pleasure to be in this kipper depot."

And I found that I was playing off key.

HE PLAYS DISSONANT NOTES You know, terrible things like that.

I started telling about my life and about how bad things were.

For the first time in my chequered career,

somebody clapped in the corner,

a little bald-headed man clapped in the corner.

I said, "Thank you for clapping."

He said, "I'm not clapping. "I'm slapping my head to keep awake."

But then I started to get a few laughs and that's how it started.

So, I owe Hull quite a lot, actually.

In 1984, Les became host of the popular game show Blankety Blank.

He spent six years on the show.

During this time, he lost his first wife Margaret to cancer,

suffered his own health problems, married his second wife Tracy

and wrote a biography that he would shamelessly plug in this

appearance on The Wogan Show.

-So how do you feel, Ter?

-I'm OK. You look very fit.

Well, I feel fit, actually. I'm a great believer in exercise.

LAUGHTER

-Can't be bad, the band laughed.

-No, no.

If you'd like to use the phrase band.

Know what? LAUGHTER

Don't start them off. Don't...

I've had to put up with them for six weeks. Listen, it's not...

I know a lot of people think it in the audience,

but everybody just leaps up and down today.

-That's the thing to be fit.

-Hm.

But take the turtle.

In the South Sea, there are turtles that live 200 years of age.

What does a turtle do?

It crawls.

-Doesn't it?

-Mm-hm.

And it does nothing else.

Now, that's exercise.

-LAUGHTER No.

-Oh, please.

I believe and every morning, I wake up, I go,

"One, two, three. Up, one, two, three. Down, one, two, three."

Then the other eyelid.

LAUGHTER

Fit as a fiddle and every artery is as solid as a rock.

It's too much rubbish talked about exercise.

Sloth is the key to life.

Doing nothing as I've written in the book!

LAUGHTER

Giving things up. Yes, seriously.

But don't you even take a little gentle exer...?

I mean, you potter about in the garden?

Well, there's nothing wrong with... What's wrong with pot...?

-Well, nowadays, gardening is bad for you.

-Is it?

-Oh, yes.

The only way to get over gardening is...

Particularly for a married man, cos women are obsessed

with the idea that a man should be doing something.

Wives don't like somebody who sits there.

-There's something wrong.

-Yeah.

-You see?

-Yeah.

So what you do is you buy a small plant

and you put it in the garden and you deliberately pull

the leaves off so the thing looks as though it's dying.

She comes out and says...

LAUGHTER

MOUTHS: What's wrong with this?

You say, "I don't know, I haven't got green fingers." She says,

"Well, your neck's a funny colour,

but that's got nothing to do with it."

That was a joke to put Ter at ease. LAUGHTER

Then you by another plant

and you say to her, "Well, you have a go at the first plant,"

and she pours a little water over it.

Now, you get up at four o'clock in the morning, you sneak out,

put a chloroform pad over her first.

You sneak out and you change the flowers over.

So the new flower has grown.

And she says, "There you are, love. In future, I'll do the gardening."

LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

What a rascal!

Yes!

-Another fine mess.

-It's all there.

What about the grouting and the rendering and the DIY

and that kind of stuff?

Well, you must always avoid that like the plague.

Always keep away from do-it-yourself.

You don't fancy extending the house or...?

No, because you see the trouble is you have people in...

If you have builders in to do the house up,

the first thing they will do is they will go, "Tsk, tsk, tsk."

Now, you've lived in that house for years.

You are proud of it, it's your domain.

It's where your children have their nest.

And you are happy with that house.

Suddenly, this fella comes in with overalls,

takes a few measurements and goes, "Tsk, tsk, tsk."

And then he sighs. They all go... HE SIGHS

Which means that for years, you've been living in a Gothic slum

and you didn't know it. LAUGHTER

So, you've got to keep well away from that. What you do, you go to

a theatrical agency and find an actor who has not worked for years, right?

Or even Lionel Blair, somebody like that.

LAUGHTER

Get them to come round and say, "What a magnificent house!

"You would be a fool to change it."

Leave it as it is. LAUGHTER

It's the art of getting no stress.

Stress-free life. But then, why get married?

If you want a stress-free life? And you've just done that.

-Well, yes, you've got a good point there. I'm very lucky.

-Yeah?

Yes, she does...

I mean, she does things her way

and I do things her way. LAUGHTER

-Does she nag?

-She never nags.

I've found the perfect answer to nagging.

It's called half a brick. No!

No, she doesn't nag at all.

-We get guidance. I get guidance off Tracy.

-Do you?

Yes, she guides me very gently. TERRY LAUGHS

No, there's no stress at all. It's...

I'm so happy. LAUGHTER

It's just lovely to be on the show.

It's like being on the Titanic being on the show.

LAUGHTER, HE BLOWS NOSE LOUDLY

-Such a quality act!

-What?

I never knew you had an audience, and I was right.

Now, listen.

Doesn't she take you shopping... You go shopping with her.

Now, come on, don't tell me you get out of that.

Well, that's quite easy shopping. That's very easy to avoid that.

-Yes?

-You see, the trouble with women is, economically,

-and I've said this many times and I'll say it again...

-Thank goodness.

..they're tremendous economists.

You see, I am very lucky with Tracy.

Not many men in the audience tonight could say the same thing. She saves

me every time she goes shopping...

Like the other week, she went to Harrods and she came back

and she had saved me £80.

That's terrific.

It only cost me 200. But she had saved me 80.

You see, so I'm lucky.

LAUGHTER

Yeah. I'm lucky.

And you believe in letting it all hang out, don't you?

You've always been one of those. I was saying...

Well, no, the police are getting very interested in that. Sorry?

I'm just saying, you are known in the business as the stud,

-apart from anything else and you do...

-Really?

You haven't... You haven't restricted your...

LAUGHTER

You haven't restricted...

ROARING LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

You haven't...

I mean, you had a small illness there...

LAUGHTER

You had a small illness some time ago.

Now, you must've had the doctor go round and say,

"Now, look, cut down on the...cut down on the fags,

"cut down on the drinking, cut down on the eating."

You mean, you've just taken no notice?

Well, that's not absolutely true.

They all gave me these... Except...

As everybody knows in the audience, if you've had a slight illness,

straightaway there seems to be a power surrounding us,

which suddenly predetermines that you are now suspect for every germ,

microbe that ever coexisted on this planet.

You're going to get it, so first of all, the greybeards come round

and they look at the size of you, the weight.

First of all, they looked at my stomach,

which we all have to do cos that's the way it is. That had to go.

They said, "You'll have to diet." I said, "What colour?"

I did all the gags, it didn't make any difference.

First of all, lose weight.

Don't smoke, don't drink and breathing can be difficult

because there's toxic fumes in the air.

So, what do you do, Terry?

-I don't know.

-You come on the show. No!

LAUGHTER

All you can do is do what you think is right. So, I didn't do anything.

I've given up the fags. I smoke cigars now.

Didn't you have some technique with the doctor of the suits?

Oh, yeah.

I put this in the book, and I hope you don't mind me plugging the book.

No.

The idea is, and this is a worthwhile tip...

Appearances matter to everybody.

So you buy a suit that is slightly too small and they go,

"You are a mess. You look like a frankfurter about to burst." Huh.

Now, your other suit that you buy fits,

but it's just a bit too big.

Now, the doctor says,

"You've listened."

LAUGHTER

You've been on the F-plan. You've listened.

You've spent your time in the loo. You've listened.

You've got rid of all that toxic waste. You are now a person.

You're going thin, and to be thin today means to be healthy.

And you feel great because he doesn't know that the suit is a bit bigger.

Now, the third suit has got to be enormous...

LAUGHTER

..and preferably with a hat that is too big.

Now, when you go to see him, he says, "My God, you've gone too far!"

LAUGHTER

"Get some steak and chips down you straight away."

And you are back to square one. LAUGHTER AND APPLAUSE

It's true!

And you... Despite all you say,

you are an old traditionalist at heart, aren't you?

You're going to do panto. Jack And The Beanstalk.

Jack And The Beanstalk at Sunderland, yes.

WILD CHEERS AND APPLAUSE

IN NORTHERN ACCENT: They'll be great. We're great.

Two nice people - Rose Marie and Diamond and Layton, a nice team.

So, it's been a busy year with the book and the...

You're doing it to avoid the in-laws, aren't you?

The panto.

-No, my in-laws are fabulous.

-Are they?

Oh, you're joking, yeah. Well, I'm a bit...

Well, you've got a nice show going. I don't know why I should...

LAUGHTER

The wife's mother went to Sydney last week to see her sister

who works over there as a brick layer.

And they apparently went swimming off of Bondi Beach and...

the wife's mother was attacked by a great white shark.

You know, they pulled her out, all night they worked in the hospital,

but it was too late, the shark died.

LAUGHTER

I sort of had a feeling that it would.

Everybody is very pleased that you are so happily remarried

and that Tracy, your wife, is looking after you so well.

-Well, we've still got the wedding present.

-Have you?

Yeah, it still ticking away there. TERRY LAUGHS

Ladies and gentlemen, my friend Les Dawson.

APPLAUSE

Four years after that appearance in 1993,

Les died of a sudden heart attack.

He was 62.

Since then, he has been cited as a major influence

and inspiration for many of today's comedians.

So, let's end with one of the routines that made his peers

and the public fall for him so heavily.

It's from a 1976 appearance on Parkinson with Les playing up

whilst playing the piano.

We will start off with Side By Side, so let's hear you sing. You ready?

Raise the roof. It won't take much doing, the guttering's on the inside.

HE PLAYS, AUDIENCE SINGS FEEBLY

Now, wait a minute. LAUGHTER

This sounds like an asthma clinic.

Try it again. You haven't paid. Go on.

HE PLAYS

AUDIENCE SINGS That's it!

HE PLAYS OUT OF TUNE

Oh, come on! Come on!

Try this one. The bells are ringing For Me And My Gal.

HE PLAYS OUT OF TUNE AUDIENCE SINGS ALONG

That's it!

That's the idea. Keep it up.

# For me and my gal... #

HE CONTINUES PLAYING OUT OF TUNE AUDIENCE SINGS ALONG

It just flows. HE PLAYS OUT OF TUNE

# For me and my gal... #

My father always told me, "If you can play the piano, son,

you'll never be short of a bob or two."

Wrong. LAUGHTER

HE CONTINUES TO PLAY OUT OF TUNE

Marvellous! APPLAUSE

His fingers at the keys and the audience in the palm of his hand,

that was a comedy master at work.

No wonder that Les Dawson is known as one of Britain's best-ever,

best-loved funny men.