Dawson's Electric Cinema

3 Apr 1975
51m

Comedian Les Dawson uses a fleapit cinema as a playground for comic sketches in this 1975 TV special

Even by 1975, there was a nostalgic quality to the cinema. This hourlong special from funny-man Les Dawson is bookended by the comedian reminiscing about his entirely fictional upbringing in the family business: a humble "rundown local fleapit" cinema in which all members of the Dawson clan mucked in, performing duties ranging from the projection booth to the box-office to the concessions stand.

We then flash back to decades years prior and meet the family: all played, naturally, by Dawson himself, in a mix of make-up, wigs and gurning facial expressions. The Dawson Electric is seen to be a warm, welcoming getaway from the world's problems - until comic chaos ensues, of course.

This framing gives Dawson and his collaborators (including Coronation Street veteran Roy Barraclough) a broad canvas for a variety of sketches both on-screen and behind the scenes. Slapstick is mined out of the farce of film projection gone wrong, and there is fertile ground throughout for Dawson's love of wordplay and double entendre. Meanwhile, the film theatre setting provides the opportunity to spoof the styles and icons of bygone ages of cinema, from 'keystone cops' silent comedy to Sherlock Holmes.

For all the daft humour, though, there's an undeniably bittersweet tone to the special. In the present day, Dawson sets the scene in an empty, derelict lot where the cinema, supposedly, once stood: a relic of a time, a place, a social class and community that has since passed.

"It's not much to look at now," he muses, looking out at the urban landscape of terraced houses and chimney stacks, "[but] it used to be so full of fun and laughter." Despite his fame on the stand-up stage and on television sketch and panel shows, he yearns for the magic of cinema, "that special feeling of excitement when the lights dimmed, that shaft of light came from the projection box, and the music started..."

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The cinema has always been so much more than just a place to watch films. At the heights of its powers, the silver screen stood for spectacle, sophistication, electricity and elegance as well as entertainment, and the very venues themselves were star attractions. These architectural marvels stood proud in cities and towns up and down the country, enthralling audiences in their thousands in the days when "going to the pictures" was a national pastime.

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