Lee Ridley (born 31 December 1980), better known by his stage name the Lost Voice Guy, is an English

stand-up comedian Stand-up comedy is a comedy, comedic performance to a live audience in which the performer addresses the audience directly from the stage. The performer is known as a comedian, a comic or a stand-up. Stand-up comedy consists of One-line joke ...

. Disabled since early life, and unable to speak, he rose to prominence in June 2018 after winning the 12th series of ''

Britain's Got Talent ''Britain's Got Talent'' (often abbreviated to ''BGT'') is a televised British talent show competition, and part of the global ''Got Talent'' franchise created by Simon Cowell. Presented by Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly (colloquially ...

''.

Early life

Ridley is originally from

Consett Consett is a town in County Durham, England, about south-west of Newcastle upon Tyne. It had a population of 27,394 in 2001 and an estimate of 25,812 in 2019. History Consett sits high on the edge of the Pennines. Its' name originates in the ...

County Durham County Durham ( ), officially simply Durham,UK General Acts 1997 c. 23Lieutenancies Act 1997 Schedule 1(3). From legislation.gov.uk, retrieved 6 April 2022. is a ceremonial county in North East England.North East Assembly �About North East E ...

. At the age of six months he was diagnosed with a form of

cerebral palsy Cerebral palsy (CP) is a group of movement disorders that appear in early childhood. Signs and symptoms vary among people and over time, but include poor coordination, stiff muscles, weak muscles, and tremors. There may be problems with sensa ...

, brought about by a brain infection that left him in a coma for two months, which affected his movement and rendered him unable to speak.Lost Voice Guy: Heard the one about the stand-up comedian who can't speak?
by Alice Jones, in ''

the Independent ''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...

''; published 11 December 2014; retrieved 4 July 2015 His disability in early life made it difficult for him to communicate with people, until the age of eight, when he received his first communication device. Ridley attended

Percy Hedley School This is a list of schools in North Tyneside, Tyne and Wear, England. State-funded schools Primary and first schools *Amberely Primary School, Killingworth *Appletree Gardens First School, Monkseaton *Backworth Park Primary School, Backworth *Ba ...

for disabled children, in Newcastle, until 12, then, until 16, the Barbara Priestman Academy for autistic children, and the mainstream school,

Thornhill Academy Thornhill Academy, (formerly known as Thornhill School) is a co-educational secondary school located in Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, England. It was a community school administered by Sunderland City Council, and had a specialism in business ...

, in Sunderland. Between 1999 and 2002, he studied journalism and online journalism at the

University of Central Lancashire , mottoeng = "From the Earth to the Sun" , established = as Institution for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledgere-established 1992 (University status granted) , type = Public , chancellor ...

, achieving an undergraduate degree in the former, and a master's degree in the latter.

Career

In 2006, he worked as a journalist with the BBC and local newspapers, before taking on the role of online content manager for the city of

Sunderland Sunderland () is a port city in Tyne and Wear, England. It is the City of Sunderland's administrative centre and in the Historic counties of England, historic county of County of Durham, Durham. The city is from Newcastle-upon-Tyne and is on t ...

in 2007.Lee Ridley: 'Disabled people are either inspirational, or benefit cheats'
by Mary O'Hara, at ''

the Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

''; published 15 April 2015; retrieved 4 July 2015 In 2011, he worked as an online journalist for the

Sunderland City Council Sunderland City Council is the local authority of the City of Sunderland in Tyne and Wear, England. It is a metropolitan district council, one of five in Tyne and Wear and one of 36 in the metropolitan counties of England, and provides the major ...

media team and freelanced for dance and entertainment magazines and web sites. Ridley began performing comedy in 2012.The stand-up comic who cannot speak
by Colin Paterson; at the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

; published 13 April 2012; retrieved 4 July 2015; "two months ago he did his first show" His decision to perform standup himself came in the aftermath of a show by

Ross Noble Ross Markham Noble (born 5 June 1976) is an English stand-up comedian and actor. Noble rose to mainstream popularity through making appearances on British television, particularly interviews and on panel shows such as '' Have I Got News for You' ...

, after which Ridley encountered the comedian and challenged him on the quality of Noble's impersonation of Stephen Hawking, claiming he could do a far better impersonation of the renowned physicist. To formulate his routines, Ridley purchased an

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating s ...

Text to Speech Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or Computer hardware, hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system conve ...

app called Speak It!, which he pre-programmed with sentences based on material he created.Lee Ridley: Stand-up success for 'Lost Voice Guy' comic
by Phil Mawson, at the

; published 9 August 2012; retrieved 4 July 2015 Following his first show, Ridley adapted his routine by selecting material that had received favourable audience reaction, and adopting a style of improvisation in which he occasionally created new material onstage through his synthesiser in real time.Lee Ridley: making comedy out of silence
by Gary Evans, in ''

''; published 6 June 2012; retrieved 4 July 2015 His first successful show was at the

Edinburgh Festival Fringe The Edinburgh Festival Fringe (also referred to as The Fringe, Edinburgh Fringe, or Edinburgh Fringe Festival) is the world's largest arts and media festival, which in 2019 spanned 25 days and featured more than 59,600 performances of 3,841 dif ...

in 2013, but he was forced to cut this short after he developed

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

.Voiceless comedian in hospital after contracting pneumonia during Edinburgh Fringe performances
by Jane O'Neill, in the ''

Sunderland Echo The ''Sunderland Echo'' is a daily newspaper serving the City of Sunderland, Sunderland, South Tyneside and Easington (district), East Durham areas of North East England. The newspaper was founded by Samuel Storey, Edward Backhouse, Edward Tem ...

''; published 27 August 2013; retrieved 4 July 2015 In 2014, Ridley won the

BBC Radio New Comedy Awards The BBC New Comedy Award first took place in 1995, and it is considered to be one of the top UK comedy newcomer awards. It was axed in 2006, being replaced by a nationwide talent hunt that places its emphasis on sketch writing and filmed perform ...

.Lost Voice Guy wins BBC New Comedy Award 2014
at British Comedy Guide; published 17 December 2014 In 2015, Ridley began to pursue a professional comedy career,BBC launches its 2015 New Comedy Award
by Andrew Dipper; at GiggleBeats; published 17 June 2015; retrieved 5 July 2015 performing a new show titled ''Disability for Dunces'' as part of the Edinburgh Fringe that year. The following year, he performed a sequel of the show, titled "Volume 2", and in 2017 he launched a new show titled ''Inspiration Porn'', which made fun of "inspirational" videos and memes about disability. By 2018, The Sequal Trust asked him to be a patron of their communication disability charity, a role he still plays. In 2018, Ridley starred in Radio 4

sitcom A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use ne ...

''Ability'', which he co-wrote with the writer and comedian

Katherine Jakeways Katherine Jakeways is a British comedian, actor and writer. She has appeared in numerous television, radio and theatrical productions. Career Jakeways' television appearances include '' Extras'', ''Horrible Histories'', '' Sherlock'', ''Trace ...

(series 1 and 2) and Kat Butterfield and Daniel Audritt (series 3). His role involved playing the disabled 'Matt', who moves out from his parents' home to share with his best friend from school, who refreshingly treats him as an equal but is not the influence Matt's concerned parents are looking for. In June 2018, Ridley won the 12th series of ''

'' after successfully making it through the audition stages, and winning the show by the public vote. In February 2019, Ridley appeared in one episode of the

BBC Three BBC Three is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It was first launched on 9 February 2003 with programmes targeting 16 to 34-year-olds, covering all genres including animation, comedy, curre ...

television series, '' Jerk''. In 2019, Ridley competed in '' America's Got Talent: The Champions'', where he was eliminated in the preliminaries. He also released his first book ''I'm Only In It For The Parking''. The voice-synthesiser Ridley uses does not reflect what his accent would be if he were able to speak; to correct that, in March 2021 he announced he would be working with a technology company, CereProc and the voice-artist Dan Pye to create a

accent similar to his family's.

Awards and nominations

References

External links

Official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ridley, Lee Living people English stand-up comedians Alumni of the University of Central Lancashire People with cerebral palsy People with epilepsy Mute people People from Consett People from Newcastle upon Tyne Britain's Got Talent winners 1980 births British people with disabilities English male comedians Comedians from County Durham