Les Dawson

Leslie Dawson was born on 2 February 1931 in Collyhurst, a working-class district of north Manchester, and grew up in a household where humour was both defence and currency. His father was an engineering worker, his mother a sharp-tongued woman whose wit would later feed his most famous routines. After leaving school he worked as a local newspaper reporter, then as a meat porter and door-to-door salesman, all the while trying out jokes in the working men's clubs of Lancashire where the audience would let you know instantly if you were funny.

For years Dawson died on stage. He changed his name, changed his act, and even considered giving up comedy until he stopped trying to be a slick, polished entertainer and started presenting himself as the world-weary, pessimistic northerner he really was. The breakthrough came with an appearance on ITV's Opportunity Knocks in 1967 and, more decisively, Granada's The Comedians in 1971, where his deadpan mother-in-law monologues and anti-piano recitals made him one of the most popular faces on British television.

Throughout the 1970s and 80s Dawson was a fixture of light entertainment: fronting The Les Dawson Show for the BBC, hosting the chaotic ITV quiz Blankety Blank, and writing bestselling books of jokes and memoirs. He was a gifted pianist — he could play fluently and seriously — but audiences loved him more for the elaborate pretence that he could not. The wrong notes, the pained grimaces, and the triumphant recovery were as precisely timed as any concert performance.

Dawson's health was never robust. A heavy smoker and famously fond of food, he suffered a major heart attack in 1985 and continued to work against medical advice. On 10 June 1993, at the age of 62, he died of a second heart attack in hospital after a routine dental procedure. He had been due to return to Blankety Blank only days later. His funeral was one of the largest the north of England had seen for a comedian, and his influence lives on in every stand-up who turns domestic gloom into shared joy.