Frank Sidebottom creator Chris Sievey dies
Chris Sievey, the creator of papier-mâché headed Frank Sidebottom has died of cancer aged 54. His comedy career spanned two decades and his keyboard songs and television shows were a big hit in the late 80s and early 90s.
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Chris Sievey originally started his showbiz career in a band called The Freshies who had some chart success in 1981 with the song 'I'm In Love With The Girl On A Certain Manchester Megastore Checkout Desk'.
Another achievement of The Freshies was to release the first ever multimedia single, which had a Sinclair Spectrum computer game called The Biz as a B-side. The Biz featured the character Frank Sidebottom.
Frank was an aspiring popstar who lived in Timperley with his mother and had a puppet sidekick called Little Frank. Frank Sidebottom appeared on many TV and radio shows and had his own TV programme Frank Sidebottom's Fantastic Shed Show.
He lost popularity towards the end of the 90s but made a comeback in 2005 with Frank Sidebottom's Proper Telly Show which showed on Manchester's local TV channel M.
Chris Sievey's fellow radio presenter Mark Radcliffe said Chris was "one of the very few people I have ever met in my life who I would call a genius."
He added: "He was so creative, so brimming full of ideas, and it wasn't just his act, he lived his life as an elaborate extended act."
Mark Radcliffe claimed that working with Chris was an amazing experience.
He said: "It wasn't just the gig that was always fun with Chris, it was the whole day. One time we were talking about travel games and he decided that a good idea would be travel snooker.
"The next gig we went to, which was in London, he'd brought one that he was developing with Velcro balls. We went from Timperley to London in a van with a snooker table in the middle of it, which meant there was barely any room to sit.
"But that was worth it for Chris, because that was a good joke, a funny joke."
Will you miss the comedy icon Frank Sidebottom? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.
