Ted Chippington
Ted Chippington (real name Francis Smyth; born February 1962, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England) is a British stand-up comedian.
Noted for his diffident on-stage persona, Chippington eschews observational comedy in favour of anti-humour and jokes which are mostly variations on the same theme, delivered in a West Midlands monotone. He also frequently performs his own versions of well-known songs in a similarly listless style. His act has left many audiences bemused or even hostile, with heckling a frequent occurrence during his performances.
His deadpan style has won him a small but devoted number of followers. One notable fan, Stewart Lee, has often cited Chippington as the reason he started doing stand-up comedy himself, and has described Chippington's act as being "a mixture of surrealism and insolent provocation and uncompromising boredom".[1] Another admirer, Richard Herring, talks of Chippington's "contempt for the very idea of jokes".[2] For his part Chippington - who describes his own act as being influenced by Lenny Bruce and Owd Grandad Piggott [3] - says he is an "anti-comedian" and that he only started doing his act "to annoy people". He has even claimed that his main reason for retiring from the stage in the 1990s was that he was becoming too popular.
