Les Dawson: Comedy with An Echo of Shadows

1: Legend of Comedy

2: Humour in the Chart 

3: Why Les Dawson and Why Now?

4: Thalia: Muse of Comedy

5: The Status of Comedy Today

 

1: Legend of Comedy

Last Sunday, I visited the memorial statue of comedian Les Dawson who was born 2^nd February, 1931. Les Dawson spent the last years of his life living in Lytham St Anne’s, Lancashire, hence the statue. He died in Manchester on June 1993. Dawson really needs no introduction as a legend of comedy, but he stands out for his inimitable style which is, particular to Lancashire: earthy, slightly dour, based on complaining about everything, which is not sarcasm but simple, direct appreciation of hardships while still having a good laugh.

One theory of humour is simply the tale of someone having a bad day- people have some schadenfreude in that they laugh at misfortune exactly because it is hard to escape it otherwise, except through laughter. The muse asteroid of comedy is Thalia, and that is significant in his chart, but did you know also there is a personal name asteroid called ‘Dawson’?

Les Dawson told quickfire one-liners in a deadpan style to maximum effect, but he also waxed overly lyrical as he had a literary side, and was privately a wannabe poet and novelist. He had Neptune in Virgo ruled by Mercury after all. He showed himself as master of the art of Bathos- switching suddenly from the sublime to the ridiculous.  Bathos is a rhetorical device not easy to handle, but Dawson would recount a poetic meditation only to end with the bump back to reality.

“I was sat at the bottom of the garden a week ago, smoking a reflective cheroot, thinking about this and that – mostly that, and I just happened to glance at the night sky and I marvelled at the millions of stars glistening like pieces of quicksilver thrown carelessly onto black velvet. In awe I watched the waxen moon ride across the zenith of the heavens like an amber chariot towards the void of infinite space wherein the tethered bolts of Jupiter and Mars hang forever in their orbital majesty; and as I looked at all this, I thought, ‘I must put a roof on this lavatory. “

And if you want to know the Secret of Life listen to this..

He was an Aquarian sun with a Leo Moon conjunct Mars, so that’s a tad volatile in his emotional reactions along with being somewhat quirky and a keen observer of people. He had a boxing injury to his jaw which loosened it so his lip could engulf the lower half of his face. When he pulled this mobile face, he needed no words to get an instant laugh from the audience.  He was just naturally funny and that served him well. This aspect – the Moon conjunct Mars- could have fuelled his humour as it is in Leo the storytelling sign, of the showman and his lines had a caustic edge.

With Jupiter in Cancer he was destined for fortune when he won the new talent show Opportunity Knocks in 1967 and became a staple character on television. So he certainly made money. He was much loved and appreciated by audiences. But Saturn in Capricorn suggests he worked damned hard for it as it is opposite the Jupiter.

2: Humour in the Chart

When astrologers ask where does humour show up in the chart they look to Mercury – and any aspect of Mercury as he is the trickster, leading people down the garden path, the clever verbalist, the spinner of tales who is  dexterous with words. Mercury is the stand-up comedian, but he can have a particular style depending on the sign he manifests in. In Aquarius it would have a social conscience and a political bent; in Gemini it may come across with a flair for mimicry and character impressions, in Scorpio with a more sardonic edge, and so on. Mercury is super strong at the moment – cazimi- in the heart of the Sun in fact, and retrograde in Virgo so it is Mercury’s moment in time.

Les Dawson’s Mercury is in Capricorn, so it comes across as ultra-sober, down to earth, restrained. His style of joke telling was pared down to the minimum with some jokes barely more than ten words long.

“There is a remote tribe that worships the number zero. Is nothing sacred?”

“Got up this morning and did my exercise routine: Up. Down. One two three. Up Down. One two three. And then the other eyelid.”

His Mercury is conjunct Saturn too which explains his dour style. He was somewhat melancholy in appearance, and he was master of deadpan delivery and ad libbing, which he maintained towards people even when he was not on stage. The goal always to make people laugh.

His best lines are delivered flawlessly without fuss. Mercury is also opposite Pluto in Cancer, so there was a depth to his work and he spent hours every morning honing his craft and improving on old jokes and humour can have a transformative effect on people, acting as a therapy in hard times or as a balm to those who are suffering.

He was master in other ways as a poet and writer, and admirer of the essays of Charles Lamb, so he knew a lot about literature and that shows through in his elaborate monologues satirising that florid style. He had an alter-ego pen name of Maria Brett-Cooper and his daughter Charlotte is planning to dramatise a novel he left unpublished called ‘An Echo of Shadows’.

Many people comment on how he played piano with the wrong notes as if tone deaf, but that meant he had to be able to play well in order to play badly. He just turned it around into a comedy sketch based on his early experiences playing piano in a brothel in Paris. But in fact, he could play very well.

 

3: Why Les Dawson and Why Now?

Since I started studying asteroids, it is like an unfolding box of tricks the never cease to amaze me as asteroids create a pattern of synchronicities  that sharpens the details. Some of them have pinpoint accuracy. The personal name asteroids – PNAs – especially stand out as a personal message to the native – you are on the right track- this role in life is for you! If you find there is a named asteroid with your name on it, go to astro.com, and enter the number to see where it is in your chart- then watch the stars speak.

While looking at the statue I thought let’s check his chart again. Originally, I only looked for Thalia the muse of comedy, but there’s an asteroid called Dawson (1849), and asteroid Dawson just happens to be conjunct Les Dawson’s Sun in Aquarius. It’s a match.

With the sun you can take a larger orb but Dawson is just 3° away.  But that it lands here on his Sun is very telling of his personal story, to highlight his uniqueness or that somehow his name would be famous and connected to his life purpose.

I also find it interesting that his Sun is conjunct Sappho at 11°. She is known as the ‘tenth’ muse and pioneered a style of writing that was very modern in the sense that she used personal intimate scenes of love to reveal universal feelings.

4: Thalia: Muse of Comedy

Now as to Thalia, the muse of comedy. This would be the marker of any comedian in the chart from the asteroid point of view. Traditionally, Thalia is light hearted ‘bucolic’ type of comedy, and twinned with Melpomene ,muse of Tragedy in Greek theatre. But Tragedy and Comedy go well together as two sides of the same coin. In Dawson’s chart, asteroid Thalia is conjunct the Great Attractor at 12° of Sagittarius. But it is also sextile to the Sun in Aquarius, and trine to Uranus, giving humour at the genius level applied to his life purpose. So even if Dawson was not conjunct the Sun we would have a strong marker of this is a comedian, get ready to laugh.

The Great Attractor is a point in space, perhaps a bundle of dark energy,  that is a gravitational anomaly with the power of a quadrillion suns. While it recedes further away, it also attracts, so it is a conundrum indeed.  So with Thalia there it augurs for a comedic style that is definitely not wishy-washy, appealing to you somehow, even if you are repulsed?

Nodal Shift

What’s more is that Dawson’s North Node is at 17° of Aries. The nodes moved into the Aries- Libra axis in July of 2023 for an 18 month stay. They move in reverse through the sign. The node is currently at 27° of Aries. But by early February 2024 it will reach 17° and Les Dawson will have a nodal return to this point.

We watch the nodal returns long after someone has died to see if the deceased person somehow comes back into prominence.  I don’t know if there is anything in the pipelines for 2024 like a new documentary or book on the cards. But Comedian Steve Pemberton of League of Gentleman and Benidorm fame is a fan of Dawson’s and has stated he wants to make a film of Dawson’s life. Pemberton is a Virgo and also born in Lancashire.

But Les Dawson came back to my attention – not just with the statue- but with his Nodal placement. It is the exact same as the North-South nodes in my own chart- just with the nodes in reverse. That’s a mirror image into the comedic world of Les Dawson who has been a favourite of mine for decades as there’s something about Lancashire humor that only people from Lancashire truly ‘get’.

So is that a personal message for me perhaps? But it would not surprise me that if by early February next year we hear news stories about Les Dawson or there could be a revival of interest in him at that time- perhaps Pemberton’s film appears on TV, or Charlotte Dawson’s dramatisation of the unpublished novel will emerge?  I will be on the look out for those to see if it aligns with his North Node return.

 

5: The Status of Comedy Today

Comedians I feel are like the court jesters: while in favour, they can get away with anything, but once the King has died, or been replaced, that blessing has moved on, they can become rejected and are sad-sorry figures.  And here’s where Chiron might become indicative of the wounding that is inflicted. They can become the classic scapegoat too- the ‘sin’ eater’ of the tribe- and are more curtailed and censured than many other person in society because jokes are perceived as dangerous somehow. Chiron is not often associated with humour but I think this is something overlooked.

There are hints of this inner-sadness mingled with outer-jollity in the titles of Dawson’s autobiographies: ‘A Clown Too Many’ (1986) and ‘No Tears for the Clown’ (1993). He portrayed himself as a bitter-sweet clown figure. His Chariklo, the asteroid of compassion, is conjunct Jupiter in the highly emotional and intuitive sign of Cancer. It also opposes that strong dour side the Saturn conjunct Mercury in Capricorn, so at heart his humour was human and heart centred even though he may have wavered to keep this balanced. John Culshaw , (yet another fellow Lancastrian), who did a Les Dawson tribute show at the Edinburgh Festival said ‘Even the most savage mother-in-law lines were written with love.’ His Venus is conjunct the Galactic Centre at 27° of Sagittarius, giving all he valued – women and family- a lot of power too.

Comedians -especially those with empathy for the whole human race- could easil be forgotten or sidelined as they become subject to political agendas that wish to stamp out certain styles of humour. There is a cod morality involved here, and much virtue-signalling, but good comedy at its core is universal and cannot be forced into a square box. Humour does not work at the rational level- it goes beyond any simplistic categorisation. It may temporarily be subject to the whims of political trendiness, but those censures also pass, and so he stands a good chance of still being appreciated long after the Correctness fuss has died down. I might even say that with that square to Uranus in Aries, he had the touch of genius too and if that was trine to the Great Attractor, there will still be people laughing at his jokes for decades to come.