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Leslie Dawson Jr. (2 February 1931 – 10 June 1993) was an English comedian, actor, writer, and presenter, who is best remembered for his deadpan style, curmudgeonly persona and jokes about his mother-in-law and wife. Early life Les Dawson was born at Collyhurst, Manchester, on 2 February 1931, the only child of bricklayer Leslie Dawson, Sr. (2 August 1905 - 10 April 1970) and Julia Nolan (14 January 1908 - 29 September 1957) who was of Irish descent. His first job was in the parcels department of the Manchester Co-op. He worked briefly as a journalist on the ''Bury Times''. Career Early in life, Dawson wrote poetry and kept it secret. It was not expected that someone of his working class background would have literary ambitions. In a BBC Television documentary, he spoke of his love for canonical figures in English literature, in particular the 19th-century essayist Charles Lamb, whose florid style influenced Dawson's. He did, moreover, appear with The Nelson Players in Ne ...
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Collyhurst
Collyhurst is an inner city area of Manchester, England, northeast of the Manchester city centre, city centre on Rochdale Road (A664) and A62 road, Oldham Road (A62), bounded by Smedley, Manchester, Smedley, Harpurhey and Monsall tram stop, Monsall to the north, Miles Platting to the east, Ancoats to the south, and the River Irk to the west. Prominent buildings include two Roman Catholic churches, St Patrick's and St Malachy's. Collyhurst sandstone Much of the red sandstone used for building in Manchester and the surrounding area, including stone for the Roman fort at Castlefield, St Ann's Church, Manchester, St Ann's Church in the city centre, Manchester Cathedral and the original buildings of Chetham's School of Music, Chetham's Hospital, came from Collyhurst Quarry. Geologists use the term Collyhurst Sandstone for this type of soft red sandstone, which occurs in North West England. It is a fine to medium grained sedimentary rock, created from desert sands blown into dune for ...
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Panel Game
A panel show or panel game is a radio broadcasting, radio or television game show in which a panel of celebrities participates. Celebrity panelists may compete with each other, such as on ''The News Quiz''; facilitate play by non-celebrity contestants, such as on ''Match Game'' and ''Blankety Blank''; or do both, such as on ''Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me''. The genre can be traced to 1938, when ''Information Please'' debuted on United States, U.S. radio. The earliest known television panel show is ''Play the Game (American game show), Play the Game'', a charades show in 1946. The modern trend of comedy panel shows can find early roots with ''Stop Me If You've Heard This One'' in 1939 and ''Can You Top This?'' in 1940. While panel shows were more popular in the past in the U.S., they are still very common in the United Kingdom. Format While many early panel shows stuck to the traditional quiz show format in which celebrities tried to get the right answers ...
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Richard Wilson (Scottish Actor)
Richard Wilson (born Iain Carmichael Wilson; 9 July 1936) is a Scottish actor, theatre director and broadcaster. He is most famous for playing Victor Meldrew in the BBC sitcom ''One Foot in the Grave''. Another notable role was as Gaius, the court physician of Camelot, in the BBC drama '' Merlin''. Early life Wilson was born in Greenock, Scotland. He went to the Lady Alice Primary school in Greenock. He studied science subjects at Greenock Academy, then completed his National Service with the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving in Singapore. Career Wilson worked in a laboratory at Stobhill Hospital in Glasgow as a research assistant before switching to acting at age 27. He trained at RADA and then appeared in repertory theatres in Edinburgh (Traverse Theatre), Glasgow and Manchester (Stables Theatre). Wilson initially turned down the role of Victor Meldrew and it was almost offered to Les Dawson before Wilson changed his mind. Wilson was awarded the OBE in the 1994 B ...
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The Grand Knockout Tournament
''The Grand Knockout Tournament'' (also known as ''It's a Royal Knockout'') was a one-off charity event which took place on 15 June 1987, and was shown on British television on 19 June 1987 (BBC1, repeated on 27 December 1987), in addition to airing on American TV via the USA Network on 12 August 1987, and European satellite channel Superchannel on 6 March 1988 (repeated on Christmas Day 1988). It followed the format of ''It's a Knockout'' (the British version of ''Jeux sans frontières''), a slapstick TV gameshow which was broadcast in the UK until 1982. The event was staged on the lakeside lawn of the Alton Towers stately home and theme park. However, the event used its own specially created immersing set, meaning that the location was not very recognisable in the TV broadcast. Although regarded as a failure, a similar show, without royal involvement was made the following year at Walt Disney World in Florida, featuring teams of celebrities representing the United Kingdom ...
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Prince Edward, Earl Of Wessex
Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex and Forfar, (Edward Antony Richard Louis; born 10 March 1964) is a member of the British royal family. He is the youngest child of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and the youngest sibling of King Charles III. Edward is 13th in line of succession to the British throne. Born at Buckingham Palace, Edward studied at Heatherdown School and earned his A-Levels at Gordonstoun before spending a part of his gap year teaching at the Whanganui Collegiate School in New Zealand. He studied at Jesus College, Cambridge, and graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1986 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history. After a brief stint in the Royal Marines, Edward worked as a theatre production assistant at the Really Useful Theatre Company before assisting in television production. He later formed his own company, Ardent Productions. Edward stepped down from the company in 2002 to begin full-time duties as a working member of the ro ...
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The Good Old Days (UK TV Series)
''The Good Old Days'' is a BBC television light entertainment programme produced by Barney Colehan which ran for 30 years from 20 July 1953 to 31 December 1983. It was performed at the Leeds City Varieties and recreated an authentic atmosphere of the Victorian–Edwardian music hall with songs and sketches of the era performed in the style of the original artistes. The audience dressed in period costume and joined in the singing, especially "Down at the Old Bull and Bush" which closed the show each week. The show was compered throughout its whole run (except for the first two shows) by Leonard Sachs, who introduced the acts from a desk situated at the side of the stage. In the course of its run it featured about 2,000 performers. Each show was up to an hour long. The orchestra pit was deliberately visible in front of the main stage. The orchestra leader for many years was Bernard Herrmann (not the American film composer, but a flautist and later conductor with the BBC Nort ...
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BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 15 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the station broadcasts a wide range of content. The Radio 2 about page says: "With a repertoire covering more than 40 years, Radio 2 plays the widest selection of music on the radio—from classic and mainstream pop to a specialist portfolio including classical, country, folk, jazz, soul, rock 'n' roll, gospel and blues." Radio 2 broadcasts throughout the UK on FM between and from studios in Wogan House, adjacent to Broadcasting House in central London. Programmes are broadcast on FM radio, digital radio via DAB, digital television and BBC Sounds. According to RAJAR, the station broadcasts to a weekly audience of 14.4 million with a listening share of 16.1% as of September 2022. History 1967–1986 The network was launched at 5:30am on Saturday 30 September 1967, replacing ...
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Listen To Les
''Listen to Les'' was a long-running comedy sketch show on BBC Radio 2 starring Les Dawson. Dawson performed various deadpan monologues and played in a number of recurring character sketches including'' "At Home with the Desponds"'', ''"The Sophisticates"'' and ''"Cissy and Ada"'' supported by other performers including Daphne Oxenford, Colin Edwynn and Roy Barraclough Roy Senior Barraclough (12 July 1935 – 1 June 2017) was an English comic actor. He was best known for his role as Alec Gilroy, the devious, mournful landlord of the Rovers Return in the long-running British TV soap '' Coronation Street'', .... Every show ended with Dawson calling upon the studio audience to join him in a singalong with a popular or classic song, which he would deliberately play badly at the piano, to great comic effect. BBC Radio comedy programmes {{BBC-radio-stub ...
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