Les Dennis
Actor
Les Dennis is one of the UK’s best-known entertainers with a career in showbusiness spanning 50 years. HMS Pinafore was his ENO debut.
Born in Liverpool, he came to prominence as a comedian in the 1970s after honing his craft on the northern Working Men’s Club circuit and turning pro after a winning set on New Faces. He became a stalwart of Saturday night television in the 1980s and 1990s, starring in comedies including The Russ Abbot Show and The Les Dennis Laughter Show, and most famously as the host of ITV’s Family Fortunes, 1987–2002. In recent years he has enjoyed a thriving career as an actor, starring with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and in numerous hit plays and musicals in the West End and on tour, as well as a regular role on Coronation Street. Despite the pandemic, he has kept busy, filming a travel series for Channel 5, a guest lead in the Jimmy McGovern drama Moving On and a starring role in the Christmas Special of Birds of a Feather. Over the summer he starred in Hairspray at the London Coliseum.
Career Highlights
Theatre includes: Hairspray (Coliseum); Venice Preserved, The Provoked Wife (RSC); End of the Pier (Park Theatre); The Miracle of Great Homer Street (Liverpool Royal Court); The Addams Family (Music and Lyrics); She Loves Me (Menier Chocolate Factory); Down the Dock Road (Liverpool Royal Court); The Perfect Murder (TPM Productions); Spamalot (ATG); Hairspray (UK tour); Jigsy (Liverpool Royal Court – Best Actor, LPD Arts); When We Are Married (WYP); Eurobeat (No. 1 tour/West End); Certified Male, Marlon Brando’s Corset (Edinburgh Festival); The Servant of Two Masters (Wales Theatre Company); Neville’s Island (Birmingham Rep); South Pacific (Birmingham Symphony); Art (UK tour); Cherished Disappointments in Love (Soho); Chicago, Me and My Girl (Adelphi); Just Between Ourselves (Theatre Royal Bath); Skylight (Watermill).
Film includes: Sideshow, Wounded (winner of Best Feature, Marbella Film Festival) and Intimate Relations.
Television includes: Moving On, Birds of a Feather, Coronation Street, Holby City, Hotel Babylon, New Street Law, Extras, The Quest 2, Casualty, Mersey Beat, Doctors, Brookside, Les Dennis and Dustin Gee’s Laughter Show.
Last updated: 28th April 2023