The Stage

Chris Sievey (Frank Sidebottom)

Published Tuesday 29 June 2010 at 13:31 by Michael Quinn

Hidden underneath a dark, fifties business suit and the larger than life papier-mache cartoon head of his cult creation Frank Sidebottom, the comedian and musician Chris Sievey managed to simultaneously enjoy anonymity and fame for more than three decades.

Fashioned on a Max Fleischer cartoon, Frank Sidebottom was a middle-aged, helium-voiced, would-be pop star who lived with his mother and began life as a fictional fan of Sievey’s late-seventies, Manchester-based punk band The Freshies. When the band disbanded soon after it got to number 54 in the charts in 1981 with I’m in Love with the Girl on a Certain Manchester Megastore Checkout Desk, the spherical-headed Sidebottom came to the fore in the alternative comedy scene of the early eighties.

Sievey’s alter ego signed to EMI and released an EP on which he covered Bruce Springsteen, the Sex Pistols and Queen. He made the transition to television via the Sandi Toksvig-hosted Saturday morning children’s show, No. 73, guested on the quiz show Remote Control, and briefly fronted his own Frank Sidebottom’s Fantastic Shed Show.

A regular fixture on the comedy circuit, he had his own show on Manchester’s Piccadilly Radio, which boasted the debut of Caroline Aherne’s caustic, OAP interviewer character, Mrs Merton. Sidebottom’s own Oh Blimey Big Band members included journalist Jon Ronson and radio DJ Mark Radcliffe. Their driver was Chris Evans.

In the mid-nineties, Sievey briefly worked for Hot Animation in Altrincham on children’s favourites Bob the Builder and Pingu. He had begun to tour extensively again over the last five years, most recently supporting punk poet John Cooper Clarke. He had just released a single for the World Cup, Three Shirts on My Line.

Six weeks ago, Sievey announced on his Twitter account that he had been diagnosed with cancer. He had returned home in May after an operation to remove a tumour near his oesophagus. Born on August 25, 1955, he died in hospital after collapsing at his home in Hale, Cheshire on June 21 at the age of 54. He is survived by three children and his ex-wife.