ACCESSIBILITY AWARENESS

Funny Business

How Lee Ridley delivers stand-up comedy without saying a word.

Proloquo2Go AAC

Tap symbols. Type words. Speak

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Like many comedians, Lee Ridley mines his own adversity for material.

“I have a disability called cerebral palsy,” he says in one joke. “Don’t worry, you can’t catch it from me—it just means you’d better not get stuck behind me on the stairs if there’s a fire.”

Ridley has been unable to speak since birth (another quip: “When I realized I would never be able to talk, I was speechless”), but he’s found a way to perform onstage using an iPad and Proloquo2Go, an app that gives voice to people who are nonverbal.

[Photo description: Lee Ridley, a.k.a. Lost Voice Guy, photographed onstage before a show at the Lawrence Batley Theatre in Huddersfield, England.]

Since taking the plunge into stand-up back in 2012, Ridley has established himself on the comedy circuit, performed for the British royal family, and won the 2018 edition of Britain’s Got Talent.

“One of the best things to happen since I won is that people are engaging with me more,” he tells us. “For the first time, they seem comfortable talking to a disabled person. I’m used to being stared at for negative reasons, so it’s nice to be stared at for positive reasons for a change.”

[Photo description: Two screenshots of Proloquo2Go show the app’s symbol-based keyboard. Frequently used words like “you” and “have” are easy to locate within the app.]
At the moment, it’s pretty hard to sound excited or sarcastic. I’d like to be able to explore tone of voice more.

—comedian Lee Ridley, aka Lost Voice Guy

Here’s how his comedy works: Ridley types his jokes in Proloquo2Go and stores them under individual buttons. With a tap, the app speaks his setups and punch lines. A visual keyboard lets him ad-lib with the audience.

And he doesn’t just use it onstage. The app has also helped him transform his memoir, I’m Only in It for the Parking, into an audiobook.

“It was quite an interesting process,” he says. “You would think that I could just have copy-and-pasted the text of my book into the speech app and let it speak it. But it wasn’t that simple. I had to listen back to the audio and break up the text using random punctuation and grammar so the flow sounded better.”

[Photo description: At the Lawrence Batley Theatre, Ridley demonstrates the iPad he uses during shows. One photo is a tight crop of his hands and iPad, while the other shows him practising his set in front of the theatre’s tiered seating.]

Ridley is now working with the Proloquo2Go’s developer to further improve the platform—both for himself and others.

“I’d love it if I could express myself more,” he says. “At the moment, it’s pretty hard to sound excited or sarcastic. I’d like to be able to explore tone of voice more.”

Ridley, who hails from working-class Newcastle, is also angling to tweak the app’s British accent. “I’d love to have a voice that isn’t as posh as this one,” he says. “I think we’re getting there. Hopefully soon I’ll have my own local accent.”