Tribute to Les Dawson

According to GMTV, and who am I to doubt that august organisation, Les Dawson's widow is proposing that their home town of Lytham St Annes erect a statue in his honour, probably a miserable statue, in keeping with his comic demenour.

I fully support this campaign.

Les Dawson was one of those comedians of the 1960's and 1970's who were inventive in their material, whilst he was always a stand-up comedian he cut his own path through a jungle of mediocre stand-up comedians on TV, most of whom took solace in leaning on a microphone stand with a cigarette in one hand and recycling other comedians jokes.

Most of Les Dawsons stand-up material was his own and fortunately any other comedian who recycled it soon found that they couldn't find the "Dawson element" that made it funny, for instance...

I can always tell when the mother in law's coming to stay; the mice throw themselves on the traps.

If I told that joke then people may smile, at best they'd smile and nod, at worst they'd give me a withering look and remind me that its one of Les Dawsons jokes.

The wife's Mother said, "When you're dead, I'll dance in your grave." I said: "Good, I'm being buried at sea."

I took my mother-in-law to Madame Tussard's Chamber of Horrors, and one of the attendants said, 'Keep her moving sir, we're stock-taking'

There are other jokes in his repetoire that don't involve his mother-in-law, but not many, for example ...

In awe I watched the waxing moon ride across the zenith of the heavens like an ambered chariot towards the ebon void of infinite space wherein the tethered belts of Jupiter and Mars hang forever festooned in their orbital majesty. And as I looked at all this I thought...I must put a roof on this lavatory.

Of course in the normal process of the BBC discovering and then flogging to death a format, The Les Dawson Show eventually became a conveyor belt of the mediocre designed specifically for the BBC's 8pm Saturday evening entertainment slot for old ladies who mustn't be offended and when that cash cow was finally milked dry by the scriptwriters they shuffled Les over to the "Blankety Blank" quiz show slot recently vacated by Terry Wogan - such a waste of talent, but fairly par for the course at BBC Light Entertainment.

I went to my doctor and asked for something for persistent wind. He gave me a kite.

Les Dawson died after a heart attack in 1993.

I saw six men kicking and punching the mother-in-law. My neighbour said 'Are you going to help?' I said 'No, Six should be enough."