Up-and-coming comedy duo Stokes & Summers bring hilarious workplace comedy to Machynlleth Comedy Festival

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YjzETvXwsRM

Double act Stokes & Summers, who are based between Llanelli and London, bring their hilarious new show Careering to Machynlleth after delighting audiences at the Edinburgh Fringe 2022, with FringeBiscuit hailing the show as “brilliantly absurd and hilarious”.

Fresh from working with Comic Relief for Red Nose Day 2022, the multiple-award nominated duo created their second stage show, Careering, which celebrates and satirises the quirks and perks of the modern workplace. Kate Stokes and Claudia Summers first performed together in 2015 as Bristol University drama students, and they earned rave reviews for their first touring show, A Really Really Big Modern Telly, at festivals including the Brighton Fringe. Critics hailed them as “highly talented actor-comedians” (Fringe Review), “definitely ones to watch” (Funny Women), and “an abundance of comedy talent” (Broadway Baby).

Since 2020, their audio sketches have featured on BBC Radio Bristol and BBC Radio 4 Extra, and their online 60-second film parodies have garnered over 15 million views and earnt them 80k followers across TikTok and Instagram. In 2021, they were shortlisted for the Evening Standard TikTok Breakout Star Award and the Funny Women Content Creator Award. Last year they collaborated with Comic Relief on a parody of Notting Hill, ‘Not-Notting Hill’, which concluded with an appearance by the hit film’s writer, Richard Curtis.

The duo have achieved all of this while living miles apart. Claudia (originally from Reading) is based in London, while Kate (originally from Portsmouth) currently lives in Llanelli, Carmarthenshire, having relocated from Bristol to Wales in 2021. The pair originally wrote and developed the show at Kate’s former family home in Abercrave, Powys before taking it to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2022.

In Careering, Stokes & Summers play a variety of colourful characters and combine narrative and sketch comedy to explore the peculiarities and pressures of the modern workplace in a playful way that is “painfully relatable” (Entertainment Now). The main storyline follows a chalk-and-cheese pair of receptionists and their struggle with the conflict between following their dreams and paying the bills. As Summers says: “Following dreams can be difficult in this modern world, but everyone deserves to give it a good go, and we’re here to have a laugh about it with everyone along the way.”

Machynlleth Comedy Festival will take place in venues around Machynlleth on Friday 28^th – Sunday 30^th April. Stokes & Summers are performing Careering at The Swallow Theatre at 12pm on Saturday 29^th April (which just so happens to be both of their mums’ birthday!). It will be the fourth stop of their 2023 UK tour, which kicked off in February at Leicester Comedy Festival, and ends at The Lowry, Salford in July.