Ridley is originally from Consett, County Durham. At the age of six months he was diagnosed with a neurological form of cerebral palsy, brought about by a brain infection that left him in a coma for two months, which affected his movement and rendered him unable to speak. His disability in early life made it difficult for him to communicate with people, until the age of eight, when he received his first communication device; his education at a school for disabled children was aided by supportive teachers. Between 1999 and 2002, he studied journalism and online journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, achieving an undergraduate degree in the former, and a master's degree in the latter. In 2006, he worked as a journalist with the BBC and local newspapers, before taking on the role of online content manager for the city of Sunderland in 2007.
Career
Ridley began performing comedy in 2012. His decision to perform standup himself came in the aftermath of a gig conducted by Ross Noble, in which Ridley encountered the comedian and challenged him on the quality of Noble's impersonation of Stephen Hawking, claiming he could do a far better impersonation of the renowned physicist. To formulate his routines, Ridley purchased an iPadvoice synthesizer app called Speak It!, which he pre-programmed with sentences based on material he created. Following his first show, Ridley adapted his routine by selecting material that had received favourable audience reaction, and adopting a style of improvisation in which he occasionally created new material onstage through his synthesizer in real time. His first successful show was at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2013, but he was forced to cut this short after he developed pneumonia. In 2014, Ridley won the BBC Radio New Comedy Awards, and by 2015 he had begun to pursue a professional comedy career, performing a new show entitled Disability for Dunces as part of the Edinburgh Fringe that year. The following year, he performed a sequel of the show, entitled "Volume 2", and in 2017 he launched a new show entitled Inspiration Porn, which made fun of "inspirational" videos and memes about disability. After winning the award, he was contacted by , who asked him to come on board as a patron of their communication disability charity, a title he still holds today. In 2018, Ridley took a starring role on Radio 4sitcomAbility, which he co-wrote with the writer and comedian Katherine Jakeways. His role involved playing the disabled 'Matt', who moves out from his parents' home to share with his best friend from school, who refreshingly treats him as an equal but is not the influence Matt's concerned parents are looking for. In June 2018, Ridley won the 12th series of Britain's Got Talent after successfully making it through the audition stages, and winning the show by the public vote. In February 2019, Ridley appeared in one episode of the BBC Threetelevision series, Jerk. In 2019, Ridley competed in , where he was eliminated in the preliminaries. He also released his first book I'm Only In It For The Parking.
