Les, How did you start out in comedy? I remember those days, it was usually the Broadway and the Montrose, I never quite made it to the Wookey. Sometimes you used to travel from one club to another. I did about 26 shows in a week, for £90! The first club I did was Broadgreen Social Club and I was still at school. In the daytime on a Saturday, I used to work at H&J’s and lug tiles from the top floor to the bottom floor and get a pound for it. So I did this gig, 10 mins experience for £2 and I thought, ‘there’s something in this!’ Did you become a comedian yourself or were you pushed into it by your mates? Well it was my mum, she saw that I liked getting up and entertaining. She wasn’t a pushy showbusiness mum, but I used to get up at Butlins and do the junior talent competition. That’s how it all started. I’m actually writing about it now because I’m doing my autobiography and it’s funny looking back at those days. Did you keep anything, like cuttings out of Echo? Or confirmations from your agent?
 | | Les Dennis in Extras |
Yes, I kept all that. The night I got married in 1974, I worked the Shakespeare and Tommy Cooper was top of the bill. Tommy was doing the auction after his show and he said ‘what will you give me for this toaster?’ and my Uncle John shouted ‘two pieces of bread!’ and Tommy said, ‘that’s funny.’ Stuff like that will be ideal for your autobiography. It is, yeah. My son Philip brought a diary of mine over and it was from 1971 and it listed all the clubs I used to play. One page said ‘passed the audition for Opportunity Knocks today, am made up!’ I even have whether I signed or didn’t sign on each page! I wouldn’t swap it because that kind of grounding you don’t have anymore. I’m working on a show at the moment with Wendy Richards. We’re on location with David Croft and Jeremy Lloyd, doing this thing called ‘Here Comes the Queen’. It’s real old-school showbusiness and people don’t realise now what it was like. I’m glad I was around when the clubs were really at the top. Where did you play out when you were a kid, Les? Well I’m originally from Garston, but I lived my young childhood in Speke. Then I moved to Childwall, Bowring Park. It was the age of innocence, we could just play out all night. What cinema did you used to go to? I used to go to the one on Allerton road, the old Odeon on the corner of the shops there. My school was Quarry Bank. The first one I can remember seeing was The Young Ones. My hero in those days was James Stewart and it’s become a family tradition now to watch It's A Wonderful Life at least once before Christmas. Your big TV break was when you got together with Russ Abbot wasn’t it? It was, absolutely. I had done Opportunity Knocks in 1971 and then I did New Faces. But it wasn’t until I got into the Russ Abbot series that it really took off. That’s when I met Dustin Gee and we started working together and got our own show, it was great. What a brilliant artist Dustin was.. He was fantastic. One night Dustin was on stage at the Wookey Hollow doing his act and this bloke just kept shouting ‘get him off!’ Dustin stopped and he said ‘you’ve ruined my act, can’t you say anything constructive?’ and the guy replied ‘Meccano’. He used to do impressions that nobody was thinking of doing. He’d do David Bowie and Robert Mitchum. He was already a star but he was quite prepared to work with me as a double act. It was tragedy, you were working with him when he passed away and you had to continue with the pantomime? Jim Bowen stood in didn’t he? Yeah, it was something I wouldn’t do now but at the time it was ‘the show must go on’ and there was a huge cast, and I would have done people out of a job. I carried on, but I wouldn’t do that again. Jim was fantastic, he came in and kept our spirits up, but it was hard seeing him doing Dustin’s routines in Dustin’s costumes two days after he had died. Dustin was a great talent and a lovely man. It’s ironic that this would happen just as he made it. | "Unless you’re doing cutting edge stuff that the producers like, they don’t realise that there’s a huge gap that the audience are crying out for." | | Les Dennis |
Yeah, he looked forward to that so much. You know, we were there the night Tommy Cooper died. We were the next act on. Jimmy Tarbuck said ‘the show’s going on’ and so we did it on live TV. Afterwards Dustin said ‘that’s the way I want to go’ and he did. The Russ Abbot show, the Dustin Gee show, yourself - none of these shows are on DVD? They don’t show them on UK TV either which is a shame. This new show we’re doing is a real return to the old style entertainment. Unless you’re doing cutting edge stuff that the producers like, they don’t realise that there’s a huge gap that the audience are crying out for. Your next big move was Family Fortunes. You could see the progression in your confidence from step to step. They gave me time to grow. I did the first series of 26 shows in 3 weeks. If that was on now, they’d have sacked me. I looked nervous, I was young. It was only over the years that I learned the craft of doing it. It’s like your show Hold Your Plums, you can’t legislate for the answers they give you and that’s where the comedy comes from. I loved the character you played in Brookside too. Yeah that was a nice character. At first you thought he was quite charming, but underneath he was quite ruthless. Brookside was coming to its end at that time though. I’m great at closing shows, aren’t I Billy? How about Celebrity Big Brother? At the time it looked like the worst decision I ever made, because I was lower than I thought I was. It let me do my thinking, but on camera. Afterwards I couldn’t get arrested, but then Extras came along and that was the turning point. It was a chance for me to show that I had a sense of humour about it and draw a line under this image of ‘Les Miserables’. | 
