An entertainment special produced to mark the twentieth anniversary of comedian Les Dawson’s untimely death in June 1993.

 

When he died, Les  was just two weeks away from recording An Audience With Les Dawson, where he would have been the latest in a distinguished line of legendary comedic entertainers to be honoured with an invitation to perform in front of an invited celebrity audience. Les Dawson was following some of the giants of both British and international comedy into the Audience With… spotlight, and would have become the latest name on a list that then included Billy Connolly, Kenneth Williams, Dame Edna Everage, Mel Brooks, Dudley Moore, Bruce Forsyth and Peter Ustinov. 

 

Twenty years later this special tribute told the story of the television event that never was, revisiting the original content planned for that show, and uniquely presented it for a celebrity studio audience specially invited to enjoy the very best of Les Dawson’s comedy.

 

Producers teamed with the world leaders in three dimensional holographic projection to produce a “staggeringly realistic” image of Les Dawson performing in his own distinctive style – just as he would have done on An Audience With Les Dawson. This was the first time a television special anywhere in the world used this technology as its centrepiece.

 

Produced for ITV