A defiant and waspish kind of guy
Edinburgh comedy
Lost Voice Guy: Inspiration Porn
Gilded Balloon Teviot
‘Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage the man who can’t even be bothered to talk!” From the moment Lee Ridley – aka Lost Voice Guy – begins his pre-programmed patter, he has the audience eating out of the palm of his hand. The 37-year-old from Newcastle was at the Fringe last year with much the same show. This time – thanks to beating almost 200 other contenders to win Britain’s Got Talent – he can trade on some newfound celebrity.
Ridley was diagnosed with cerebral palsy in early infancy and as a result finds it hard to walk, impossible to speak – hence his reliance on a computer-synthesised voice to communicate. His triumph has been to turn the pre-installed RP delivery of a middle-aged man into the deadpan conduit for individualistic repartee – insinuating a “voice” of his own.
Inspiring? Yes, but that’s also the target of Ridley’s thoughtful and entertainingly waspish hour, a mix of observation and self-deprecation that confirms he’s got talent – and the ability to sustain material beyond a short spot. Announcing a slightly less amenable persona than we saw on TV, very sweary and happy to make sexual references, Inspiration Porn genially lambasts the way the disabled can get co-opted as shining examples.
He derides the sharing of “inspirational” quotes and uses the hectic cavalcade of “superhuman” stunts that filled the TV promo for the Rio Paralympics of 2016 as the prime example of what he’s most irked about.
The implication is that while some disabled people go the extra mile, others feebly, or idly, languish. It’s the kind of distinction that feeds prejudicial attitudes, and there’s some rage against the callous government machine here. Without asking for sympathy, he puts us in his shoes (even sharing his dating/ relationship travails too) and forces us to accept his ordinariness for all his exceptional challenges. The show’s limitations – Ridley grinning rather aimlessly as each gag is cued in, almost more stagehand than stand-up star – finally assist its satirical strength, as if to say: “Want more? Well tough!” Lost Voice Guy is, defiantly, his own man.
Until Aug 26. Tickets: 0131 556 6550; edfringe.com