Leslie Dawson

Les Dawson (born Leslie Dawson, 2 February 1931 - 10 June 1993) was an English comedian, actor, writer, presenter and pianist. He was known for his deadpan style, curmudgeonly persona, musical routines and jokes about his mother-in-law and wife. He was born in Collyhurst, Manchester, the only child of a bricklayer, and his first job was in the parcels department of the Manchester Co-op before he worked briefly as a journalist and an apprentice electrician.

Dawson moved to Paris to find inspiration as a writer and found work as a pianist in a brothel; making a living as a pianist evolved into comedy when he got laughs from deliberately bad piano-playing, playing "all the wrong notes in exactly the right order". His career took off after he participated in Hughie Green's talent show Opportunity Knocks in 1967. Television series in which he appeared included the panel game Jokers Wild (1969-73), Sez Les (1969-76) and The Les Dawson Show (1978-89), and he presented the quiz show Blankety Blank from 1984 until 1990.

Dawson's style as a comic was world-weary, lugubrious and earthy. Some of his routines featured Roy Barraclough and himself as elderly Lancashire women, Cissie Braithwaite and Ada Shufflebotham, who mouthed indelicate words in a style Dawson called "mee-mawing". He also wrote novels and was the subject of This Is Your Life on two occasions. Initiated into the Grand Order of Water Rats, he served as that order's "King Rat" in 1985, and his final TV appearance was on the LWT series Surprise, Surprise, aired shortly after his death.