Lost Voice Guy

• Jaclyn Arndt
• 5 August 2013

This article is from 2013.

Fatty script yields slim pickings

Struck with cerebral palsy at the age of six months, losing muscle strength and his voice, Lee Ridley turned to stand-up as a way to recover what had been taken from him. His prosthetic digital voice, courtesy of an iPad, delivers a pre-programmed show, with the most charming moments coming from Ridley’s unscripted reactions to his own material.

Curiously, the plodding delivering of Ridley’s digital voice supplies both truly awful and rather superb comedic timing especially in his recollection of the Spice Girls-inspired gang names he and his disabled schoolmates cooked up. Playing off the techie advantages of his voice makes for a series of amusing impressions (Stephen Hawking, natch), while his nouveau ventriloquist act with the Clint Eastwood-voiced ego of his iPad is a nice bit of (potentially unintended) throwback kitsch.

These moments, however, are rather buried within a fatty script, the bulk of A Voice of Choice comprising a biographical narrative more suited to a TED Talk than the Edinburgh Fringe spotlight.

The Stand III & IV, 558 7272, until 25 Aug (not 12, 19), 8.10pm, £8 (£7).