Close your eyes and Jon Culshaw has you believing you’re listening to Boris Johnson, Tony Blair, Donald Trump... even Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Comedy legend Les Dawson, king of the mother-in-law gags, has long been one of his favourites.
But cracking the look is another thing. Dawson was barrel-chested with a deadpan face that would give way to a grimace worthy of the World Gurning Championships title itself.
For years, Culshaw wanted to do Les justice with more than a quick impression. Well, now he has.
Open your eyes... and there he is – wig on, face creased up... and even wearing Dawson’s rings which he famously twiddled with while reeling off the jokes.
Culshaw’s show – Les Dawson Flying High – premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe and hit the road last Thursday. The final show is at the Lowther Pavilion in Lytham St Annes, Lancs – close to where Les is buried.
Jon, 54, says the show finally became a reality during lockdown.
The star of TV’s Dead Ringers says: “I’d wanted to do a show about Les Dawson for many years. Something much more substantial than a 30-second sketch.
“I knew Bob Golding, who’d played Eric Morecambe as well as directing Simon Cartwright as Bob Monkhouse.
“I mentioned my idea for a fully rounded portrait of Les, and Bob jumped at the chance of directing it. When Tim Whitnall, who’d written the Morecambe one-man show, agreed to do the same for Les, we were off and running.”
The framework for the show was the true 1985 story of Les, flying on Concorde for a gig in Manhattan.
“Loosened by a few flutes of Dom Perignon,” John says, Les began to write his autobiography.
It took in his humble beginnings in Manchester “in a gaslit hovel so decrepit even the cockroaches went around on stilts”. There were references to his army years, where he learned the piano – which he would later play deliberately badly to raise a laugh.
He became resident pianist in a Parisian brothel. And then, in 1967 and aged 36, he won the TV talent show Opportunity Knocks. The rest, as they say, is history.
Dawson’s journey allows Culshaw to indulge in yet more of his impressions of famous names from back in the day. Like Opportunity Knocks host Hughie Green, TV travelogue star Alan Whicker, and post-war Prime Minister Clement Attlee.
And, of course, some of Dawson’s own characters – like the gossipy housewives Cissie and Ada. Les and his pal Roy Barraclough played them on his TV sketch show in the 1980s.
Jon’s abiding sadness is never meeting Blankety Blank host Les, who died at 62 from a heart attack in 1993.
But he adds: “I did see him once, in the summer of 1992. He turned up at Radio Wave in Blackpool. I was doing my show in one studio and Les walked past the window in a summer straw trilby. He had such presence.”
Dawson’s first wife, Meg, died of cancer in 1986. Three years later, he married Tracy Roper, 17 years his junior and mum to his fourth child, Charlotte, now 29. Jon adds: “I couldn’t have put this show together without the blessing and co-operation of Tracy and Charlotte. Tracy let me have Les’s personal diaries from the 40s and 50s.
“I do wonder what he would have thought if he’d known that they’d end up on stage in a show paying tribute to him almost 30 years after he died.”
And then there was his jewellery.
Jon goes on: “Tracy came to the dress rehearsal of the first preview in Bury. She took one of my hands in hers. ‘Les did wear rings like that,’ she said, ‘but you haven’t got enough’.
“So, when we did a photoshoot in front of Les’s statue in St Annes, she brought a selection of Les’s rings which I now wear on stage – plus his watch and a Grand Order of Water Rats pendant round my neck. It made me feel an instant connection to him. And I know it was emotional for Tracy. We both had tears in our eyes. The play is such a love letter to Les.”
Jon has worked hard to show that even Les’s worst (or best) mother-in-law jokes came from the heart.
“They had real warmth, written with love and absurdity. There was no cruelty involved,” he says.
And his favourite? He slips effortlessly into Les, saying: “I remember when the mother-in-law left her teeth in our bathroom. It was half-an-hour before they started slowing down.”
So, no trouble finding Les’s voice. But what about that look? He says: “I’m helped by my wig which, if I pull it halfway down my forehead, gives you a start on the facial shape.
“I also wear a barrel-chested velvet suit and shirt that help with the body image. And then there are those distinctive facials tics and gurns. It’s not difficult to find him.”
The show was a hit in Edinburgh. “People would say it was like spending an hour with an old friend,” says Jon. “Lots of people came, including Reece Shearsmith from League of Gentlemen and Sir Ian McKellen.”
Jon discovered his gift for mimicry at junior school in Ormskirk, Lancs. “I could take off all the teachers,” he says.
After school, hospital radio gave way to a job on Viking Radio in York. But it was a phone prank on London’s Capital Radio that brought him fame.
He rang No10 pretending to be then Tory leader William Hague – and was put through to PM Tony Blair.
His error was to address Blair by his first name, rather than Prime Minister.
He recalls: “I sensed he’d clocked it wasn’t the real Hague but that he was enjoying playing along with the joke. He later mentioned it at PMQs.”
Jon – currently single – also reveals he is keen on astronomy and regularly scans the night sky from his flat in North London. Fitting that, for a man who can shapeshift into so many stars.
Les Dawson Flying High is on tour until December 11.
