Comedy

‘I was walking down the road the other day, this chap comes up to me; he says, “I’ve just got back from ‘Nam.” I said, “What d’you mean mate, Vietnam?” He says, “No, Chelten-’nam.”

This is the genius of Ted Chippington, Britian’s great lost anti-comic. Dressed in muted teddy boy regalia – though cruelly robbed of his DA by male pattern baldness – and with the general demeanour of a West Midlands Boris Karloff, Chippington was, and remains, the unsung hero of 1980s alternative comedy. In fact, he was the very embodiment of what Bernard Manning would ‘hilariously’ call ‘an alternative to comedy’, and all the more brilliant for it. Feature continues

Delivering his material – whether it was an anecdote about a corned beef sandwich or a rewritten cover of a classic rock ‘n’ roll song – in a flat Nottingham-ish monotone, Chippington’s persona was a million miles from the confident cocksure identity of most comics. You got the impression he didn’t care whether anyone laughed or not, although, as it later turned out, this wasn’t at all true.

Chippington initially came to pseudo-prominence after opening for cult post-punk band The Fall in 1984, the notoriously miserable outfit who were often supported by that other hero of hilarity, John Cooper Clarke. Of an undetermined age even then – Chippington has always been a recluse and media shy – his material, often centred around conversational exchanges with the various people who would walk up to him in the street, was different. John Peel, coincidentally The Fall’s biggest fan, began playing Ted’s cover of Ottowan’s ‘DISCO’ (‘She is O… Oh dear’) from his ‘Non Stop Party Hits Of The ’50s ’60s And ’70s’ EP. A small but immensely devoted hardcore of followers began to coalesce around Chippington’s gravity.

Those devoted fans would write letters to their idol in the hope of receiving a much-coveted Chippington lapel button, inscribed with the slogan ‘A Good Mate Of Ted’s’ – as prized as an I-Spy or Blue Peter badge to the ’80s indie comedy nerd.

Still, while he might have gone down well with The Fall’s audience, anyone who remembers the baffled reaction that his Number 56 hit ‘Rockin’ With Rita’ received on ‘Pebble Mill At One’ could tell you he was never destined for the same crossover success as Alexei Sayle.