Shirley Bassey & Les Dawson - Comedy Skit (1979 Shirley Bassey Show)

Описание: Shirley hosts Les Dawson as a guest on her 1979 TV Variety Show. Dawson is considered one of the greats in British Comedy. He 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.

ABOUT Les Dawson:
Les Dawson (2 February 1931 -- 10 June 1993) was a popular English comedian, remembered for his deadpan style, curmudgeonly persona and jokes about his mother-in-law and wife. His characteristic routines featured Roy Barraclough and Dawson as elderly women, Cissie Braithwaite and Ada Shufflebotham. Barraclough's character Cissie had pretensions of refinement and corrected Ada's malapropisms or vulgar expressions. As authentic characters of their day, they spoke some words aloud but mouthed others, particularly those pertaining to bodily functions and sex. The characters were based on those Les Dawson knew in real life. He explained that this mouthing of words (or "mee-mawing") was a habit of Lancashire millworkers communicating over the loud noise of looms, then resorted to in daily life for indelicate subjects.

He was a talented pianist but developed a gag in which he played a familiar piece such as Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and then introduced hideously wrong notes (yet not destroying the tune) without appearing to realize, smiling unctuously and relishing the accuracy and soul of his own performance.

Having broken his jaw in a boxing match, he could pull grotesque faces by pulling his jaw over his upper lip. This is described in the first volume of Dawson's autobiography A Clown Too Many.

In the Comedians' Comedian, a three-hour programme on UK's Channel 4 on 1 January 2005, Dawson was 37th in the top 50 comedians of all time, voted by fellow comedians and business insiders.