Les Dennis is acknowledged as one of Britain’s most popular entertainers and as well as being well-known to TV viewers through ITV game show Family Fortunes, he has a long list of theatre, film and television credits to his name.
Les is currently filming Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's new BBC/HBO series Life's Too Short.
He will then go on to play "Smee" in Peter Pan in Dublin and Southampton
His theatre work includes Wilbur Turnblad in Hairspray Amos Hart in Chicago (West End); Bill Snibson in Me And My Girl (West End); Robert in Don’t Dress for Dinner (UK tour); Tom in Skylight (Watermill Theatre, Newbury); Geoff Lazenby in Mr. Wonderful (Gateway Theatre, Chester); Paul Sheldon in Misery (Oldham Coliseum); Dennis in Just Between Ourselves (UK tour); Sergeant Major in Cherished Disappointments in Love(Soho Theatre); Yvan in Art (UK tour); Norman Bartholomew in Murderer (Menier Chocolate Factory, London); The Gangster in Kiss Me Kate and Neville in Neville’s Island (Birmingham Repertory Theatre). He played on tour and the Edinburgh Festival both as Nick Chase in Marlon Brando’s Corset and McBride in Certified Male. He toured as Truffaldino in The Servant of Two Masters for The Wales Theatre Company, directed by Michael Bogdanov; he was the narrator in Side by Side by Sondheim in London and in 2008 he toured and played a West End season in the award-winning comedy musical as Sergei in Eurobeat, Almost Eurovision. In 2009 he played Herbert Soppitt in JB Priestley’s When We Are Married at the West Yorkshire Playhouse and the Playhouse Theatre, Liverpool and toured as Mr Fulton in Disney’s High School Musical 2, Live on Stage until early 2010. Les is also a seasoned panto star.
He made his film debut in Intimate Relations with Julie Walters and Rupert Graves and other film work includes Large and Wildlife.
Born and brought up in Liverpool, Les started in a showbusiness career immediately after leaving school. His early TV comedy series included Russ Abbot’s Madhouse (ITV and BBC) and also for the BBC The Laughter Show with the late Dustin Gee and The Les Dennis Laughter Show .
Other TV credits include: Merseybeat and Casualty (BBC); Brookside (Channel 4); Quest II directed by David Jason (ITV); Extras for Ricky Gervais; The Sound of Musicals; New Street Law and Holby City (BBC) and The Bill (ITV). He hosted In the Grid (Channel 5);TV Now And Then (UK TV) ; Les Dennis’s Home Video Heroes (Challenge TV) and from September 2010 he hosted a brand new family show, titled Fee-Fi-Fo-Yum! For CBBC on BBC1. Radio work includes: Like They’ve Never Been Gone; Bob Gives Up His Day Job; Talking to Ted and Going For Broke (Radio 4) and as Luther Billis in South Pacific (Radio 2).
The paperback of his top-selling autobiography Must The Show Go On? (Orion) was published in 2009.
