91Èȱ¬

A T-shirt worn by Lost Voice Guy comedian Lee Ridley when he won Britain's Got Talent is one of the artefacts in an exhibition celebrating North East comedy.

The show, Not Only Sid James Died In Sunderland, is being run in Newcastle on 13 and 14 July as .

Other exhibits will include posters from 40 years of shows, a DVD of 102 Dalmatians signed by actor Ben Compton and a life-size statue of Viz character Johnny Fartpants.

Organisers are appealing for the public to lend them other items displaying the region's "hilarity heritage".

Mr Ridley, who has cerebral palsy and is from Consett in County Durham, won the ITV talent show in 2018 while wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "I was disabled before it was popular".

The exhibition is being organised at the BottleWorks in Byker by Felt Nowt, a co-operative of North East comedians, with the assistance of the Tyne and Wear Archives and the Discovery Museum.

They are seeking props, prints, programmes, tickets and costumes "for a showcase of comic curios from over a century of North East laughter" and "hilarity heritage", a Felt Nowt spokesman said.

Items can be loaned for the exhibition or donated as part of early steps for a museum dedicated to the region's comedy.

Felt Nowt comedian Lee Kyle said the group wanted to promote new comedians and "preserve" past ones too.

He said: "We all know Bobby Thompson, Sarah Millican and Rowan Atkinson but lesser-known figures like Wavis O’Shave, Ella Retford and Wee Georgie Wood also played a vital role in the cultural history of our region and it's equally vital that we preserve and recognise their contribution."

Mr Kyle said organisers wanted the "personal history" of people who had family who "contributed to North East comedy in any way", as well as stories of people seeing comedy or meeting comedians.

"The more obscure the better," Mr Kyle said, adding: " We’re after anything honestly."

Stories already set to be told in Not Only Sid James Died In Sunderland include that of a jester who was replaced by a monkey, a comedian sentenced to death for being gay and the region's links to assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

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