Thursday 28 January 2016

329 Sez Lez / The Les Dawson Show


First  viewed : Uncertain

I  don't  know  when  I  first  caught  on  to  Les. His  ITV  show  Sez Les  finished  in  October  1976  which  seems  too  early  and  his  return  on  the  BBC  in  The  Les  Dawson  Show  in  January  1978  seems  too  late. I'm  guessing  that  perhaps  there  was  a  repeat  of  the  former  in  1977  which  would  be  about  right.

Most  of  Les's  most  famous  characters  were  introduced  on  Sez  Les  , including  the  celebrated  double  act  with  Roy  Barraclough  as  two  gossipy  Northern  harridans, Cissie  and  Ada. My  favourite  though  was  Cosmo  Smallpiece  , the  short-sighted  loser  whose  sexual  starvation  leads  to  eruptions  of  manic  behaviour. I  remember  a  great  sight  gag  where  Cosmo  is  running  frantically  up  a  descending  escalator  to  paw  at  an  advert  for  ladies  underwear.

I  don't  remember  the  out  of  tune  piano  playing  until  the  BBC  show  but  I  always  found  that  hilarious  too.

I   always  had  affection  for  Les  as  a traditional  Northern  comic  made  good  but  I  think  doing  Blankety  Blank  was  a  mistake  which  eroded  his  reputation. Les  had  no  regular  TV  spot  at  the  time  of  his  death in  1993  but  I  wouldn't  have  bet  against  him  making  a  comeback. Instead  he  died  in  hospital  of  a  heart  attack  while  awaiting  the  results  of  a  routine  check-up  for  insurance  purposes. One  likes  to  think  he  was  conscious  long  enough  to  appreciate  the  irony.

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