(Image: TOM DYMOND/SYCO/THAMES ITV)
Lee Ridley has gone from local journalist to one of Britain’s favourite comedians and a champion of the disabled community in a career journey driven by determination, humour and North East pride.
Known as Lost Voice Guy, the County Durham performer has built an award-winning career using a speech synthesiser to turn life with cerebral palsy into comedy.
Ridley was born in Consett, County Durham, and diagnosed with cerebral palsy at six months after a brain infection left him in a coma for two months.
The condition affected Ridley’s movement and left him unable to speak during early childhood. Ridley received his first communication device aged 8, giving him a way to express himself and take part fully in school life.
He attended Newcastle's Percy Hedley School, which supports disabled children, until he was 12, before moving to Barbara Priestman Academy in Sunderland, sometimes attending lessons at mainstream school Thornhill Academy next door.
The arrangement gave Ridley support while letting him test himself in mainstream education; he told teaching publication Teachwire: “It was nice to have both the support network of Barbara Priestman School while at the same time pushing my limits over at Thornhill.”
Ridley's first passion was journalism, leaving the North East in 1999 to study journalism at the University of Central Lancashire before gaining a master’s degree in online journalism in 2002.
He worked for the BBC and local newspapers before joining Sunderland City Council’s media team as an online journalist in 2011.
A comedy career first called to Ridley after a 2012 visit to Newcastle City Hall to see comedian Ross Noble. Ridley challenged Noble over his impersonation of physicist Stephen Hawking, insisting he could do a better job. Noble found the comment so funny he began using the story in his own performances.
Encouraged by the response, Ridley blogged about his ambition to enter comedy.
He bought an iPad text-to-speech app called Speak It!, programming it with his own material.
Ridley regularly returns to the North East for comedy festivals and events. (Image: LEE WOOLHEAD)
A local promoter offered Ridley a performance slot, where he adopted the name Lost Voice Guy, and he began touring that year. His career took off soon after, winning the BBC Radio New Comedy Awards in 2014 and reaching the Edinburgh Fringe in 2015.
His show Disability for Dunces proved popular, and Lost Voice Guy returned with new material for the next two years.
In 2018, the Consett comedian won the 12th series of Britain’s Got Talent after dominating the public vote.
During his crowning, Ridley said: “I have been blown away by the support of the judges and the general public.”
His Britain's Got Talent victory earned him £250,000 and a place at the Royal Variety Performance.
Throughout his career, Ridley has been hailed a champion of disabled comedians, attracting praise from the likes of Matt Lucas and deaf comedian Steve Day.
Ridley told the Guardian: “To be honest, I wasn't aware there were many disabled comedians until I started myself.
"I think we provide something different, instead of just a person telling jokes followed by another person telling jokes. I guess that can get quite stale.”
Ridley regularly campaigns for disabled people’s access to public life and education, and is a patron of communication-disability charity the Sequal Trust.
He also founded Newcastle-based brand The Crip Advisor Shop, which sells humorous clothing and gifts “from a disabled perspective.”
In March 2021, Ridley partnered with CereProc and voice artist Dan Pye to create a speech synthesiser voice reflecting his family’s Consett accent, further cementing his loyalty to his County Durham hometown.
Ridley was inducted into the first North East Comedy Hall of Fame in September 2026 and wrote proudly on social media:
“I'll always be proud to call myself a North East comic.”
Jake Donaldson, a director of Hall of Fame organisers Felt Nowt, said: “The North East has produced some of the funniest, boldest and most inventive performers in the world.
"This night is about celebrating that legacy properly – with pride, with daftness, and with the full noise of a region that knows how to laugh.”
Ridley's 2027 tour, The Cerebral Palsy Puppet, is the first in five years for the County Durham funnyman, who said it was his "most personal yet," exploring his identity, negative assumptions about disabled people, and "what it really means to find your own voice."
The Stand Comedy Club will host the tour's Newcastle stop on May 10 2027.
Tickets are available on The Stand's website.