In a BBC Television documentary, he spoke of his love for canonical figures in English literature, in particular the 19th-century essayist Charles Lamb, whose florid style influenced Dawson's.

[5] Making a living as a pianist evolved into comedy when he got laughs from deliberately bad piano-playing by playing "all the wrong notes in exactly the right order"[6] and complaining to the audience.

He first rose to public prominence on the talent show Opportunity Knocks in 1967 and worked as a comic on British television for the rest of his life.

[8] Dawson was the subject of This Is Your Life on two occasions, in December 1971 when Eamonn Andrews surprised him on Opportunity Knocks,[citation needed] and again 21 years later, in what would be one of his last television appearances, when he was surprised by Michael Aspel on stage at the Theatre Royal, Plymouth, at the curtain call of the pantomime Dick Whittington in December 1992.

"[12] His characteristic routines featured Roy Barraclough and Dawson as elderly women, Cissie Braithwaite and Ada Shufflebotham.

[13] As authentic characters of their day, they spoke some words aloud but mouthed others, particularly those pertaining to bodily functions and sex.

He explained that this mouthing of words (or "mee-mawing") was a habit of Lancashire millworkers communicating over the loud noise of looms, then resorted to in daily life for indelicate subjects.

To further portray the reality of northern, working-class women, Cissie and Ada would sit with folded arms, occasionally adjusting their bosoms by a hoist of the forearms.

He introduced to his BBC television shows a dancing group of fat ladies called the Roly Polys.

He was a talented pianist but developed a gag in which he played a familiar piece such as Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata and then introduced hideously wrong notes (yet not destroying the tune) without appearing to realise, smiling unctuously and relishing the accuracy and soul of his own performance.

[21] The show served as a tribute and featured celebrities including Bruce Forsyth, Cilla Black, Terry Wogan and Ken Dodd.

On 10 February 2014, the BBC reported that Dawson's daughter Charlotte had found a 110-page "unpublished story of love and mystery, titled An Echo of Shadows, [that] was written under the name Maria Brett-Cooper...".