Early Life and Education
Chapman was born at the Stoneygate Nursing Home, Stoneygate, Leicester. He was educated at Melton Mowbray Grammar School and studied medicine at St Bartholomew's Medical College and later at Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He was an avid fan of radio comedy from an early age, becoming especially drawn to that of The Goon Show. In the introduction to Chapman's (2005/2006) posthumous anthology, Jim Yoakum notes that "the radio shows didn't necessarily make him laugh. Only a select few got chuckles from young Chapman including Frankie Howerd, the team of Jimmy Jewel and Ben Warriss, It's That Man Again, Educating Archie, Take It From Here and Much-Binding-in-the-Marsh. 'I especially liked Robert Moreton, although no one else seemed to like him very much. He would do things like tell jokes the wrong way around and switch punch lines. He was obviously a very good comedian and was ahead of his time. The appearance of incompetence was wonderful. He was one of my heroes.' But the show that truly astounded Graham, and was a major influence on his comedy was The Goon Show" (p.xvii). Chapman states "from about the age of seven or eight I used to be an avid listener of a radio programme called The Goon Show. In fact, at that stage I wanted to be a Goon" (p. 23).
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