At Chortle Fast Fringe 2012

Extract from his Edinburgh show

More Chris Stokes videos

Third place in the Leicester Mercury Comedian Of The Year contest in 2009

Manchester Comedy Festival: Phil Ellis and Chris Stokes
Live Review
Manchester Fab Café

Comedy festivals should be more than coordinating tours so all the big guns pass through town in the same week. So, then, to a basement sci-fi-themed bar hidden beneath one of Manchester’s main thoroughfares, where a couple of newish comics try out extended sets beneath feeble yet irritating disco lights.

The spirited Phil Ellis has more than enough likeable energy to overcome any such technical failings, as he flits around the audience with his frisky, easy banter spreading a feeling of good-humoured fun.

This half-hour routine is based on old family photographs, inviting us to laugh at Seventies fashions or how stupid he looked as a child. It’s far from ambitious, but Ellis does has the flair to make the most of this slight premise. Faded images of faces from the past are given invented back stories, as we’re invited to guess how severe their cause of death was or simply chuckle at their facial hair.

Whether there’s enough substance here to maintain a full-length show has to be questionable, but her Ellis sets such a cracking pace that you rarely have time to register how flimsy the whole idea is. His personality is more important than any jokes, as he’s got more than enough of the former to overcome weaknesses in the latter.

Chris Stokes is the polar opposite, delivering with monotonous deadpan that can test the audience’s tolerance, while hoping the material is so strong it’ll carry him.

However, like so many new comedians, he needs to stop watching quite so much Stewart Lee and explore his own voice a bit more. His dry, repetitious set-ups – especially over his detailed knowledge of the Titanic – is a near carbon-copy of Lee’s style, but the writing is, understandably, less assured.

When he does allow a little of his own personality to peek out from behind that mask of aloofness, he’s certainly more entertaining – and the routine about sharing his name with a child molester is nicely done. There are other inventive punchlines in the set, but he’s in danger of boring the audience between them.

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Saw Chris supporting Ardal O'Hanlon last Friday night, He was brilliant. His jokes about being a geek and what they do and say were very funny and went down very well with the audience. Look forward to seeing him again.

Alan, May 2012

Saw Chris at this gig and the mic was not thrown at anyone in particular and have seen him since at a Liverpool gig and he went down a storm having been given the opportunity to deliver his normal material, which is intelligent and extremely funny why not give him another chance he obviously was not on top form after being distracted by the shenanigans

J Timbrell, September 2010

Absolutely awful! Saw him at the Edinburgh Fringe as part of the Big Value Show this year, left after 20mins. After being subjected to 10mins of an absolutely obnoxious compere, Chris promptly came to the stage nervously proceeded to eat an apple and pronounced he was purposely not being funny! He, and his friends, thought was hilarious. Unfortunately as his stage presence was non existent all he ended up doing was making a complete fool of himself compounding matters by dropping his whole pint. This pretty much brought his show to an end, with 5 mins left. For some reason unbeknownst to the audience Chris then decided to dismantle the mic stand to make life difficult for the next comedian. The farce was round off by Chris, once being boo'ed of stage, launching part of the microphone stand at my wife at which point half the audience left. I can safely advise this stand up be avoided.

J Mitchell, September 2010

Very, very good. Mesmerisingly enjoyable and belly-laugh-funny. He requires an attention span but that's the case for any comedian with intelligence and depth. Chris is awesome now & will only get better. A very exciting prospect. Good luck to him.

Cole Parker, May 2010

Saw him last night in Ilchester and laughed once maybe. Poor stage presence and really bad finish talking about being mistaken for another Chris Stokes in a child molestation case! Pretty poor stuff!

Mark, January 2010

I saw Chris recently and found him to be taking the mick somewhat out of the audience. His finale was bizarre and made mockery of the night. I'm sure many others at the gig though differently but I have to air my view.

Bev, February 2009

Seen Chris about four times and it just gets better and better. Excellent story telling with great delivery. An excellent writer as well, most importantly very funny.

Andrew Ryan, December 2008

He's alrite if you like slow talking... funny guy with top stage presence

Jonathan Elston, November 2008

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