Clifton's first performing job was as a singer with a dance band, however he was fired after a month. His first television performance was on the light entertainment show The Good Old Days, where he was inspired by Les Dawson. He performed in the 1979 Royal Variety Performance. Since then he has performed in it several times, including 2016. He was a regular appearance on Crackerjack!. During the 1980s, he appeared on The Keith Harris Show, and in 1982, Clifton ran the London Marathon with Oswald the Ostrich. In 2002, Clifton featured on the BBC2 documentary series The Entertainers, which followed 1970s and 80s entertainers who had dropped out of the limelight. In 2005, Clifton and Oswald appeared in the music video for Peter Kay and Tony Christie's Comic Relief version of " Amarillo". He made his Edinburgh Festival Fringe debut in 2006 at the Udderbelly venue. Writing in The Guardian, Brian Logan gave it 3 out of 5 stars and called it an "exercise in retro comedy", but "also unrepentantly funny". Clifton was a contestant on Series 5 of The Voice UK, applying under his birth name. He performed "The Impossible Dream " from Man of La Mancha, and did not advance past the blind auditions. Following his appearance on the show he released an album of covers called The Impossible Dream, which included "The Lady in Red" and "Wind Beneath My Wings". After a death metal band's song titles were printed on his album cover by mistake, Clifton presented an award at the Kerrang! Awards in June 2016. In 2018, he starred in ITV's Last Laugh in Vegas, a documentary following eight "showbiz legends" as they prepare a show in Las Vegas. In January 2020, Clifton appeared as a guest on the first episode of the new series of Crackerjack! on CBBC. In February, he played himself in the first episode of Meet The Richardsons on Dave. Within the episode, he is a family friend of Jon Richardson and teaches him how to operate a monkey puppet similar to his ostrich. Clifton has starred in several pantomimes, playing the father ofCinderella at the Hull New Theatre in 2018 and at Northampton's Royal & Derngate in 2019. He has also presented various shows on BBC Radio Sheffield, and BBC Radio 4.
