Les Dawson famously played the piano out of tune, deliberately, which is harder than playing in tune. Very talented musician and a very funny man.

@ianplatt1375

3 ай бұрын

Yes agree 👍

@joedge6142

3 ай бұрын

Yes, his performance of Feelings never fails to crack me up.

@RichDoes..

3 ай бұрын

Once sailed Plymouth to Roscoff, 6 and 1/4 hour crossing... it took 8 hours, the guy playing piano was very Les Dawson, LOL

@abbottstephen82

3 ай бұрын

Les always reminded me of my aunty when he dressed as a woman

@joedge6142

3 ай бұрын

@@abbottstephen82 😆 Ronnie Barker always resembled my mother in law when he did.

A man who can play the piano so badly on purpose, is a very very good player.

@thedarcbird

3 ай бұрын

He was, when he played seriously, he sounded amazing!!!!

@DavidJones-wx4im

3 ай бұрын

Les was a fantastic pianist as well as a fantastic comedian.

He had a long running Joke with the late Duke of Edinburgh about black pudding and whether you should fry it or boil it. At one Royal Variety performance Les louded said "boiled" as Prince Phillip walked past him, a few days later he recieved a letter off the Prince, with a single word... "Fried".

@rachaelghostcat8584

3 ай бұрын

Grilled depending on the fat content! LOL

@mattwicks5918

3 ай бұрын

Fried

My favourite joke is the classic - "You knew mother in law was coming over when the mice started throwing themselves on the traps"

@jhill74893

3 ай бұрын

How would you like to talk to your mother-in-law? Through a spiritualist

Can you imagine if someone tried to introduce the Roly Polys now. The miserable, humourless, offended by anything brigade would go apoplectic.

@lynnejamieson2063

3 ай бұрын

I disagree, these terms are acceptable when people give them to themselves…just as reclamation of racial and sexuality slurs are. Roly Poly’s is the name they gave their own dance troop, so in reality it wouldn’t garner many complaints. The offence comes when these things are said by others who either haven’t considered the affect they might have or are said to purposely belittle and/or degrade.

@user-zm4cd4vj4z

3 ай бұрын

​@lynnejamieson2063 Oh, give over people like you are the problem today!

@IanDarley

3 ай бұрын

100% there would be a load of woketards being offended on their behalf (despite the feelings of those actually referenced). Offence by proxy in the name of DEI is the modern mind-virus that's destroying the last dregs of fun.

@mickylove76

3 ай бұрын

No they wouldn’t. The roleypoleys were a body positive and age positive group. They were in on the joke.

@trendydelquendy

3 ай бұрын

Les Dawson AND the Roly Polys would work brilliantly today.

To play the piano this badly on purpose and make it funny takes incredible skill. Sadly they don't build them like Les anymore, a true great.

@surfdigby

3 ай бұрын

His daughter said he would practice for 6 hours a day. He would spend 3 hours playing classical and jazz perfectly, and then 3 hours on his comedy playing, going through every possible combination of notes to work out which ones sounded the worst.

I was born in 1964, and I consider myself so lucky to have grown up through the 70's and 80's when there was not only so many great comedians around, but loads of great music too! so many of those greats have passed on now, I thank them all and remember them with admiration, gratitude and affection!

Les and the Rolly Pollys were absolute proper entertainment. This has been a complete and utter blast from the past. Love it!

The Rolly Polly’s where a proper dance group.

Grew up watching Les with my parents, remember it being said how difficult it was for him to play the piano wrong when he could play perfectly, good family entertainment 😬

Back when we used to have variety shows, that had time-served performers with talent. Those that worked their way up through the pubs and clubs and earned their stardom.

Les Dawson played piano at my school when I was 9, and it was amazing. Lovely bloke.👍

The late Andre Previn, conductor & classically trained pianist, said that he couldn't play the piano like Les Dawson with the deliberate wrong notes. On the Parkinson talk show Les said that in his younger days he went to Paris to become a writer but ended up playing the piano in a brothel & learned the technique with the wrong note to put the patrons of their rhythm.

@jonathancole833

3 ай бұрын

I thought Eric Morecombe had given Previn training on playing the piano badly.

Any keys that sounded off would have purposefully been so! Les would have made sure of it! The Roly Polys dance troupe were a standard with Les for a number of years. The lead dancer who did tap on point was Mo Moreland. She passed on December 15th at the age of 87.

Les Dawson, what a lovely humble man, his sketch with the girls is truly legendary.

As previously mentioned les was actually an amazing pianist. I'm 62 and been playing since I was 8 and trying to purposely play in 2 different keys is bloody hard because the brain constantly wants to play in tune.

@BigyetiTechnologies

3 ай бұрын

It really is. You either end up playing correctly, or it's just a racket.

@sandrahughes8645

3 ай бұрын

Very clever man.

Les Dawson - so funny. Lugubrious is the word to describe him.

He was a very accomplished pianist. I think it was him that said, playing the piano incorrectly deliberately, was harder than you think

the Rolly-Polly's were all chorus line dancers back in the day. the short fat blonde one was called the Mighty Mo and could do the splits.

Such a funny man, those performances were done with great skill, he was always a favourite.

Les Dawson would spend a lot of time playing around on the piano finding the best bum note to play for comic effect. He was actually a very skilled pianist as well as a brilliant comedian. The Roly Polys back in the day when they were young were all professional dancers and chorus girls.

Loved Les , great one liners , endless mother in law jokes and you have to be a really good pianist to play so much out of tune and keep it funny .He was a great host on Blankety blank , taking over from long running original hostTerry Wogan and doing it in his own unique style . One of our best .

i used to know Mo from the Roly Polys one of the dancers,she was really great ,she had a hotel in Blackpool as well ,she died last year so great to see her on this ,Les was great comedian

Hello Alan. Les was a student of previous generations of northern comedians and brought routines he had practiced for northern club audiences up to date for TV. Note, he did TV with John Cleese too. A clever man, not ashamed of his origins. The larger population of Manchester meant folk seemed more quick witted than some other "homelier" and smaller northern towns and I reckon you can see some of this in Les, though he portrayed a down to earth character, that was really a bit of the clown, as per the red nose. Note that the key character in British comedy is not the hero wise guy making fun of the clown, as often seen in US, but the character who is the clown. Examples are Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel. It is the little guy that life mistreat and we all laugh at, but who struggles through and carries on despite all life throws at him. By surviving to face the next disaster, he is the hero.

I love Les Dawson. Brings back so many childhood memories watching his show with my family. He was a big influence for me becoming a pianist. So good & funny, but it’s so sad that an act like Les and The Roly Polys would never be accepted today. They’d be villified by the “thought-police”. I’m so glad you reacted to him. xx

Just watched "An Audience with Ken Dodd 1994 " which is 1 hour 53 minutes long so perhaps something to watch when you have a couple of hours to kill ,had me in tears with laughter.

Les was an a national treasure. Rick Wakeman rates him

😂😂😂😂 brilliant classic Les Dawson 😂😂😂

My dad once told me he sat next to Les Dawson at the bar at the famous Blackpool tower. He also was driving in Manchester whilst working one day and came to a set of lights. Alongside him in his sky blue Rolls Royce was Bernard Manning. He once met Margaret Thatcher but he didn't talk about that much!

When I was a kid it was just before portable tv's became a thing so there was only one TV in each household, so shows like this we'd all watch together, I grew up as the youngest in a family of 7 and have wonderful memories of us all watching Les Dawson together in hysterics, his TV show was wonderful, one of his regular routines was him and another legendary actor called Roy Barraclough in drag playing a couple of housewives called Cissie and Ada, absolute comedy gold!

Never watched Les Dawson before love he's humour had me belly laughing, keep up the good work.

A pre-emptive like from me because I know this is going to be good.

I miss Les Dawson .. bloody amazing

The man the legend. Proper fabulous!

"Ooooh knickerknackerknockers!!" 😉👍🇬🇧

Les was one of the Greats, a humble and totally professional entertainer and a Nice person too 🙏🙏

OMG I had forgotten about him. How we used to love his shows growing up in the UK

Ahh that brought back lovely memories of watching Les with my Ma & Da in the seventies as a kid. Les's comedy was the traditional double entendre with a side helping of innuendo but never ever smutty. You should look up the sketches he did with Roy Barraclough as Cissy & Ida I think their characters were called, hilarious man, you'd love them Al. Thanks for that bud.👍😂

Les Dawson was from the north of England and spoke very fast which may be challenging for some. You also have to understand 1970s UK northern culture. I loved watching the Les Dawson show on Tv as a kid in the 1970s. His humour was considered out dated in the 1980s which was to witness the emergence of alternative comedy from a bunch of younger male and female university and drama school graduates which included Hugh Laurie. This new wave of comedy rendered Dawson and his fellow contemporaries old hat. They were regarded as dinosaurs by the younger generation while their style of comedy was regarded by many as inappropriate. For example the comment he made about the Rolly Polly ladies being decoys for a whaling fleet would be totally unacceptable today and would be regarded as fat shaming. Like many other things such jokes were totally acceptable back in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. He was a very well read and talented man, I have been told that it is extremely difficult for a trained pianist to play the piano so badly. I am glad that you stuck with it. Thank you , I always enjoy your reactions.

His mil jokes were legendary

Les Dawson was a fabulous stand up, a superb magician and a very good actor, even appearing in the BBC television production of Nona, an adaptation of the 1977 play La Nona ("Grandma") by Roberto Cossa for the Performance series. Performing in drag, he was cast as a 100-year old, compulsive eater in a Buenos Aires household. You must also check out his "Cissy & Ada" sketches with Roy Barraclough

The Roly Poly who came on separately after the other four was called Mo Morland and died very recently - within the past couple of weeks.

Les Dawson as a guest on the Shirley Bassey show. I thought I was going to die 😂

Hey EB…..how you doing over there, can’t beat a bit of Les…..he played the piano out of key….deliberately, he was a very accomplished player, so impressive that he could play so badly when doing his routine , the ladies were his unofficial dance troope, The RolyPolys…..little Mo , the front girl, did actually get on point, and tap dance 👍👌🇮🇲

The bow at the beginning tells you this was probably a Royal Variety Performance, with a royal in attendance.

@BigyetiTechnologies

3 ай бұрын

1987 it would have been the Queen and Prince Phillip

@daveofyorkshire301

3 ай бұрын

@@BigyetiTechnologies Not necessarily, any of the royals could have attended. It could have been Princess Diana and Prince Charles...

I'm a bass player, and to play something wrong is much harder to play than to play it right, I don't know how he did it. I discovered Les Dawson in my early 20s in the early 90s presenting Blanketly Blank I use to cry with laughter. i realised and remembered my Dad loved watching him back in the 70s. So funny!!

His wife said, whenever he played all the wrong notes on the piano at home she knew he was finished playing for the night. Such a funny man, gone too soon. A good clean comedian and not one swear word to get laughs, like so called comedians of today. Oh The Roly Polys, ❤️

Eric Morecombe did the same on the piano another very good player

If you haven’t checked out Cissie & Ada already you should do. Les Dawson and Roy Barrowclough doing their take on two elderly gossiping women…

Les was a very very intelligent guy and able to play with words… 👍

Les lived 13 or so miles from my town, met him once whilst working at a venue his pal was performing at, very funny fella!

In the early to mid 80’s my Mum and Dad took me on holiday to Blackpool while my brothers were at BB (Boys Brigade, a forerunner to the Scouts) Camp and whilst there we went to see Les Dawson and the Roly Poly’s perform in a theatre near Blackpool Tower. I remember loving it and my Dad carrying me on his shoulders on the walk back to the B&B but I couldn’t tell you a single think he said or did…my oldest brother is still jealous to this day though 😊

The great thing about Les is that the audience anticipated it and begged for the piano routine. Absolutely everyone loved him. He hosted blankety blank for years, top man.

He played piano in a brothel in France when he started out. He rise to fame on a tv takent show back in the 70s A very talented man a much missed. R.I.P Les.

Les Dawson and June Whitfield together on radio was comic genius

Old fashioned fabulous british humour right there!

The mother-in-law and rats throwing themselves on traps is probably his best!

@GillianSmith-ou3xz

3 ай бұрын

One of his was about his mother in law was so scarey even the Daleks hid behind the sofa when she walked into the room.

If you haven't already seen it try les Dawson - surprise surprise - I've got you babe

Les Dawson could play the piano very well, but what he was very good at was mixing up the notes to make it sound like he didn’t know what he was doing. There is an art in doing that.

There is an art to playing the piano badly. It's not just a matter of playing the wrong notes, it has to be precisely the wrong notes, and not just any piano player can do it. But Les Dawson was a genius.

I'm glad you showed the Roly Polys! Classic British humour from a past time, never to be repeated.

They still love that Variety Show Style in Britain Charlie Chaplin and Stan Laurel were in a Touring British Monty Python Show in 1909 Hollywood. You have to watch the Fairground Film where Charlie was Trying to get Himself Noticed by the Film Crew. When the Editors tried to Cut Charlie out of the Film, They couldn't stop Laughing and BINGO, Charlie and Stan are Famous Peace OOT Bud

He was a very funny and talented guy ❤

Les was always very deadpan in his delivery 😂. You have know how to play the piano to play it that badly, hilarious ❤❤❤❤😂

Always loved when he played piano like that, even tho he can actually play beautifully. He played like that as it was a part of his routine lol. 😂😂

PLEASE do Les Dawson 'feelings' if you haven't done it already.

I'd forgotten about the rolly pollies. That's a fun memory for me. 😊

@andywrong3247

3 ай бұрын

I think they were called the roley pollies polys I may have butchered the spelling.

A great comedian, intelligent and good clean fun.. another of the great people watchers we had back then, he could make a sketch that reminded you of neighbours or family... Passed so suddenly and way too soon.. hard to find such talent now, Peter Kaye is my next favourite

He did a Sunday concert at a theatre I managed in the early '80's and I spent some time in his company. Lovely man!

Oh brings back memories , he was hilarious. Loved him doing blankety blank also.

Les was brilliant and unique. I loved him when I was a kid.

I burst out laughing and woke my husband up, used to love Les, and that group of ladies? cannot remember what they were called?? Think I said before, went went to see him in Windsor, with another couple, and was right at the front, but our husbands had worked hard that week, and both fell asleep in front of him, I was mortified ,but he didn't say a word.

You cheered me up!

Les is performing at the Royal Variety Performance here, in front of the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh, hence he is trying to speak in a "posh" accent, which is why you thought it was hard to fathom.

Love love love les dawson he was brilliant with Roy barraclough as sissy & Ada please watch a few vids of them hope you & family are well Alan thanks again for posting vids….will we have double still game this weekend mate 🤞

A true comedy legend. A Collyhurst lad at heart ❤

Do you have any idea how good you have to be at the piano to play it that badly? A legend.

He was great in blankety blank too

He played out of key on purpose. He was actually a very good pianist in real life. I'm loving your reactions to him.

The comedy legend that was the late great Les Dawson.

What a great year...... Also Im just watching top gear and the guest is seasick Steve and I honestly thought it was you (hopefully no offence caused)

Hello from Ireland. Les was a genuise

I think Northern humour keeps us going...loved his piano playing and mother in law quips..😊😊😊

Yorkshire accent, he was an incredible artist, he was Classically Trained on th Piano and Violin and a very very great comedian.

@DavidJones-wx4im

3 ай бұрын

Les wasn't a Yorkshireman, he was Lancastrian through and through.

@Garwfechan-ry5lk

3 ай бұрын

@@DavidJones-wx4im than you , I stand corrected. I met him twice, a generous and kind man.

The beauty of Les!

you should see him doing cissie and ada very funny i think you will love it

You should watch Victor Borge

Les Dawson was amazing, he could play like a master when required. Shame he died in a hospital, he was waiting to see his wife and new born baby. But he didn't have a chance to see his family again :-(.

Alan john Cleese said les dawson was a genius. Les was a talented hard worker who won a talent contest,i watched him as i was growing up but i didn't really appreciate him fully till after his early untimely death.he was a jack of all trades he could act seriously, my particular favourites of les was his sissy&ada routine, he had another character called knickers nackers knockers,his piano routines were better off on the radio the audience participation lasted longer before going out of key.

Les was born and grew up in Manchester, and has a mixed Mancunian/Lancastrian twang. Hard to deal with, if you're not familiar.

Good old fashioned fun. You really should check out his old lady sketches.

Great video 👍 This whole skit is what makes him a legend of comedy same as Tommy Copper etc.😂😂

Watch les Dawson 'candle in Cumbria' 👌🤣

Greetings Alan, His accent is a Lancashire accent, I believe Les was from Manchester originally, so a Mancunian. His generation of comedians learnt the skills of audience interaction doing the famous circuit of clubs and theatres in the UK, as he often used to say, if they liked you they let you live at the end of your act.

He was also an author who provided a very enjoyable read.

The great Les Dawson, God gave us a gift and we loved him.

Les was a master of that brilliant comical talent he could play piano beautifully and make it funny as well as the rollypollys very funny❤😂🎉😅😊

Les Dawson - Candle in Cumbria

As the piano was one of the instruments that was enforced upon me as a kid because I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to learn whereas my parents didn't (!) I tried to get away with playing like Les Dawson until I was told I'd probably practiced enough for the day.

good old fashioned entertainment