BEHIND THE MASK
Frank Sidebottom documentary traces troubled life of character’s creator from cheating on wife with groupies and drugs
WITH his nasal voice, huge papier-mâché head and out-of-tune songs, comic creation Frank Sidebottom was always going to be an unlikely star.
But after the man behind the mask died penniless eight years ago, Chris Sievey’s strange alter-ego has become more famous than ever — something the tragic star predicted would happen.
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He inspired the 2014 film Frank, which starred Oscar-nominee Michael Fassbender, a bronze statue of the character has been erected in Chris’s home town of Timperley in Greater Manchester and there is even a painting of him in the National Portrait Gallery in London.
Now documentary Being Frank talks to those who knew Chris best to shed light on his troubled life.
And towards the end of the crowd-funded film, which was a hit at last year’s South By Southwest Festival in Texas, we see Frank singing: “I hope when I’m dead I’ll be fantastically famous.”
Featuring stars including comedians Johnny Vegas and Ross Noble, it tells how singer, comic and artist Chris descended into a world of cocaine and booze as he allowed his alter-ego Frank to take over his life.
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Chris, who died aged 54 from cancer in June 2010, would keep the mask on off stage and, if someone called him “Chris” with the head on, he would not respond until they said “Frank”.
Mick Middles, who wrote Chris’s authorised biography, said: “Famously, Frank and Chris had two separate phones.
“If you rang and Frank answered you would have to ask him to go and get Chris.
“And Chris and Frank would send each other letters and drawings.”
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Chris also cheated on his wife with groupies — who would ask to have sex with him while he wore Frank’s head — and left his children without money during week-long benders.
Born in Sale, a couple of miles from Timperley, to dad Victor, a raincoat salesman, and housewife Betty, he started smoking cannabis at the age of 12 and was experimenting with LSD four years later.
Obsessed with The Beatles, aged 15 he hitched to the headquarters of the band’s Apple record label, where he held a sit-in protest in a bid to see his heroes.
It did not work but the sound engineers did agree to let Chris and his brother Martin record a few tracks. Like all of his demos, the songs failed to land a record deal — so Chris set up his own label called Razz in 1974.
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The closest his band The Freshies got to chart success was reaching number 54 in 1981 with track I’m In Love With The Girl On the Manchester Virgin Megastore Checkout Desk.
Fame beckoned instead for former member Billy Duffy, who became lead guitarist in The Cult, and Lisa Stansfield, who had performed backing vocals on one of Chris’s songs.
Billy recently recalled: “What I remember about Chris was he was a really fun guy. He was really proud of all the rejection letters he had from all the record companies he’d sent his demo to.”
Even though the pop-tinged punk rockers never became household names, they had their fair share of female fans.
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Chris’s ex-wife Paula — who he wooed by pushing into a canal — said in Mick’s book: “I was so naive because girls would often ring up and ask for him. He used to tell me that it was just fans. It wasn’t.
“I didn’t think in a million years that he was up to anything . . . but, apparently, they were up to everything.”
Never the committed romantic, their wedding reception had been a bag of fish and chips in a shop doorway during his lunch hour.
But it was at a fancy dress party the couple went to that the idea of Frank was born.
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Paula revealed: “He made me a pair of papier-mâché boobs and head for a party. He liked the idea of the head, not the boobs.”
At first the character was a mascot for The Freshies but, soon, he became more popular than the group.
Chris formed the Frank Sidebottom Oh Blimey Big Band in 1983.
It featured Mark Radcliffe and Marc Riley — who later became Radio 1 DJs Mark and Lard — and Jon Ronson, now a successful writer and filmmaker. Their van driver was Chris Evans.
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With a swimmer’s clip over his nose, Frank’s songs included Timperley 969 1909 (which was Chris’s home telephone number), Born In Timperley (to the tune of Born In The USA) and his own version of Kylie Minogue’s I Should Be So Lucky, where he rhymed Tizer with synthesiser.
Regular routines would see him with cardboard puppet Little Frank or dressed in a Manchester City kit calling out, “Guess who’s been on Match Of The Day?”, with the audience shouting back, “You have, in your big shorts”.
At home there was a loving family atmosphere with Paula and their three children — Stirling, now 40, Asher, 39, and Harry, who died in a crash in 2017 at the age of 24 — until Chris really went off the rails.
He hit the depths just when his act got his own ITV series — Frank Sidebottom’s Fantastic Shed Show — in 1992.
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The arrival of a decent pay cheque allowed him to indulge his worst habits. Paula once recalled: “We had loads of money. He just started doing loads of drugs, cocaine, drink. He was probably spending it on prostitutes.”
Things became so bad that Paula took their three kids to live in a hostel following their eviction for not paying the rent.
Frank’s Fantastic Shed Show introduced Caroline Aherne to the world, with her playing the nosey, grey-haired Mrs Merton — a character Chris claimed he had invented.
He had first spotted the future Royle Family star working in a bar.
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Her brother, Patrick Aherne, 56, said: “Chris was a larger than life character — even without the papier-mâché head.
“In the 1990s after Mrs Merton became famous, Chris was after some kind of payout, but it never happened. Caroline had the Mrs Merton idea.”
As the careers of his former bandmates and co-stars grew, his began to decline.
In the late 1990s he hung up the papier-mâché head — and soon found himself jobless and bankrupt.
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But as a talented artist, he got work on kids’ programme Bob The Builder at the start of the millennium.
By this point he had split from Paula and had moved in with girlfriend Michelle Pouncey, who he dated for six years.
But someone Chris could not truly divorce himself from was Frank.
He brought him back in 2006 on Manchester regional TV station Channel M.
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However the onset of cancer just before Christmas 2009 ripped apart what had been a warmly received comeback. And, just six months later, Chris was dead.
More than £20,000 was raised to save him from a pauper’s funeral, with comedians Phill Jupitus and Jason Manford putting their hands in their pockets.
Former girlfriend Michelle, 56, told The Sun: “I think he would just laugh about him being more famous now. It would have suited his sense of absurdity, like ‘Right, now I am gone you appreciate me?’.”
His brother Martin, 66, who gigged with Chris, said: “He’d be giggling now at all the fun and games after he has gone.”
- Being Frank is in cinemas from March 29.
BFI London Film Festival clip from the documentary Being Frank, the story of Chris Sievey
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