Chris Tordoff is an Irish comedian, actor, writer, YouTuber, and streamer. He is best known for co-creating the RTÉ mockumentary series Hardy Bucks, in which he played bungling drug dealer Francis "The Viper" Higgins in the first four seasons. He has reprised the role in other media, such as The Hardy Bucks Movie, the comedy series Republic of Telly and Viper's View, and on his own YouTube and Twitch channels.
Life and work Tordoff was born on October 7, 1985, and moved from Leeds to the Irish town of Swinford, his mother's birthplace, in his early teens. There he met Martin Maloney, who had moved from Liverpool the year earlier. In 2009, the pair co-created Hardy Bucks as a web series on YouTube. Tordoff co-wrote, directed, and starred in it as antagonist Francis "The Viper" Higgins, a small-time drug dealer. Later that year, it won RTÉ Television's Storyland competition, and was commissioned as a series for television. For the second series, Liz Gill took over directorial duties from Tordoff. He reprised the role of the Viper in the 2013 film based on the series, The Hardy Bucks Movie. He was also a guest on Republic of Telly on RTÉ.
Tordoff later began creating online comedy on his own YouTube channel, under the name Francis Higgins. One series, World News, was a parodical news show inspired by a segment on Euronews called No Comment. Tordoff used clips from No Comment to produce his own videos, but was threatened with legal action by Euronews in 2016. This led to Tordoff being commissioned by RT UK to produce 50 episodes of Viper's View, as an insert for Sam Delaney's News Thing. In October 2016, Tordoff was nominated for an IFTA in the Best Male Performance category for his role as Francis Higgins.
Since 2019, Tordoff has regularly streamed video games on his YouTube channel, playing them in character either as Francis Higgins, Tommy Shlug (a bus driver from the west of Ireland and Francis Higgins' uncle, who also has a rare condition which at times makes him appear to lack any nasal features), Conor Williams (a D4-based sales executive for Mercedes Ireland), or Fontaine (a gritty New York detective) among others.
Filmography Film Year Title Role Notes 2013 The Hardy Bucks Movie Francis "The Viper" Higgins 2016 Digs for Pennies Matty Gandon Short film
Television Year Title Role Notes 2010–2018 Hardy Bucks Francis "The Viper" Higgins 20 episodes Also director and writer 2011–2016 The Republic of Telly Donnie's Irish CousinFrancis "The Viper" Higgins 50 episodes
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