Comedy legend Les Dawson is back on the road – in a tribute show which moved his widow Tracy to tears.
Impressionist Jon Culshaw is playing Les, the gurning, grimacing comic who was king of the mother-in-law jokes.
Nailing the look meant wearing a barrel-chested suit and a wig.
But after watching a rehearsal, Tracy, 71, reckons Jon pulled it off in style.
She said: “Jon is amazing as Les, he has worked so hard. It is a wonderful tribute. He is bringing Les back to life for us.
“Jon is so clever. He takes you through Les’s life, does all the voices, plays the piano, sings. It’s fabulous. It was very emotional and I shed a tear.
“We’ve met Jon quite a few times. We took him to see Les’s statue. He is a real gentleman.”
Tracy and Les were married from 1989 until he died in 1993, at 62.
Their daughter, reality TV star Charlotte, also loves Jon’s tribute show, Les Dawson Flying High – a reference to a 1985 Concorde trip to New York on which Les started writing his memoir.
Charlotte, 29, added: “Jon is amazing, he is so talented. He does it to a tee. He really admired my dad, he has so much love for him and it shows.
"He’s mastered his mannerisms. It’s like my dad is here but not. It’s strange but comforting. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside. Dad would be proud.”
Jon, star of TV hit Dead Ringers, premiered his show at the Edinburgh Fringe and it went down a storm.
He worked on the script in lockdown and recruited Bob Golding as director and Tim Whitnall as writer.
They were behind a tribute to another Lancashire comedy king – Eric Morecambe.
Jon, 54, said: “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 1940s 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.
“Tracy came to the dress rehearsal 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, 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.
“There were tears in both our eyes. The play is such a love letter to Les.”
Jon’s tour started on Thursday and runs until December 11. The final performance is in Lytham St Annes, Lancs – where Les is buried.
The comic served in the Army, played the piano – deliberately badly, to tickle fans – and shot to fame in 1967 when he won Opportunity Knocks. He went on to host quiz show Blankety Blank and had three children with first wife Meg, who died from cancer.
Jon says Les’s jokes always came from the heart, adding: “They had real warmth, written with love and absurdity. There was no cruelty involved.”
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.”
