About Frank Sidebottom
At age 35, Frank Sidebottom shot to stardom in the most unlikely of circumstances: broadcasting from his garden shed. In between shopping trips in Timperley for his mum, he and his puppet Little Frank captured the imagination of the nation with his ‘Frank’s Fantastic Shed Show’ TV series and an ongoing presence in weekly music paper, the NME.
Frank made regular appearances on North West television and national Saturday morning kids’ TV throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s. Frank broadcast ‘Radio Timperley’ on Manchester’s Piccadilly Radio and ‘Frank’s World’ on BBC Radio, and he published his own comic strip in the children’s weekly comic Oink!
As he toured the country, Frank thrilled audiences with his covers of Queen, Kylie Minogue and Beatles songs and his absurdist- yet-family-friendly brand of showbiz, punctuated by a raffle to win some cardboard.
Frank’s body of work spans all artistic media, and he is widely recognized as the greatest semi-professional entertainer and turtle owner the village of Timperley has ever known.
Click the images to read an interview with Frank Sidebottom
Timperley Bigshorts FC, Football Association-Affiliated club.
Established 1990, disbanded 2014.
Big Frank, Little Frank and Wilma the dog at the Bigshorts' home ground, Timperley, 1990
The death of a real-life cartoon character.
Whether it was a strange case of split-personality/schizophrenia or simply an exercise in method-acting taken to its ultimate conclusion, Chris Sievey did such a masterful and thorough job of being Frank Sidebottom, that they were viewed as two completely separate people.
Frank was a ‘larger than life’ character and so by logical extension, he was also ‘larger than death’.
Yet sadly, when Chris Sievey was diagnosed with cancer, Sidebottom got sick too.
Being a part of Frank’s world, you became immersed in an intoxicating, blurred mix of fantasy and reality. How could someone who remained forever aged 35, who had never suffered anything more than an ear infection or a head cold, fall foul of such a serious disease?
When Chris Sievey died on June 21st, 2010, it seemed rather unfairly, that Frank Sidebottom was taken away from us too.
—D.A., 21:08:19
Me as ‘Me after chemotherapy’