Will the real Les Dawson please stand up?
Les Dawson – Flying High at the Corn Exchange on Thursday, September 29. Review by ROBIN STRAPP
There was a full house at the Corn Exchange for Les Dawson – Flying High starring Jon Culshaw in the title role. He is a superb impressionist and features in the BBC’s programme Dead Ringers among others.
He embraces the character of Les Dawson with supreme professionalism dressed in a tuxedo and has the mannerism and gravelly voice that made Dawson famous.
Dominating the stage is a huge old-fashioned television, used to project key moments in his life and extracts from past television shows including Blankety Blank.
Culshaw appears as the iconic middle-aged gossips Sissy and Ada, perfectly capturing their idiosyncracies, much to the delight of the audience.
The show is a homage to Dawson’s life from his early years growing up in a two up two down in Collyhurst near Manchester. We learn about his schooldays and love of English as well as his boxing classes and time spent doing National Service.
On demob, he finds a job as a reporter for the Bury Times, but really wants to be a novelist.
Dawson worked hard to develop his persona from the working men’s club of the North, where he adopted his dour character and signature trademark off-key piano playing.
Egged on by his wife Meg he successfully appeared in Opportunity Knocks hosted by Hughie Green, ending up performing at The Royal Variety Show and The Talk of the Town.
There are video appearances from his hero Max Wall and a hilarious sequence with the irreverent Billy Connelly.
In 1985, he flies on Concorde to New York with the task to record his autobiography using a dictaphone, but the champagne service is a severe distraction.
There is a deluge of funny one-liners that come fast and furious and of course many laugh out loud mother-in-law jokes delivered on point.
The second act turns more serious as Lawson questions his journey as he “ploughs his own furrow” through life that becomes filled with self-doubt, sadly leading to a reliance on alcohol.
Written by Tim Whitnall and directed by Bob Golding, this was a wonderful evening’s entertainment and Culshaw was simply outstanding.
