CityLife

Toby's the great unknown

COMEDY fans voted Toby Hadoke winner of the inaugural Les Dawson laughter trophy last week.

The relative unknown beat household names including Peter Kay, Johnny Vegas and Ken Dodd to take the honour.

Simon Donohue discovers who he is.

A poll of Toby Hadoke's peers last week revealed him as Manchester's favourite funnyman.

He beat laughter-making luminaries like Peter Kay to become the inaugural winner of the Manchester Comedy Festival's Les Dawson Award For Services To Comedy.

Incredibly, he won the festival website's vote despite the fact that most people outside the circuit know little about him and would be hard-pushed to even pronounce his name properly.

For those who didn't vote, Toby's Hadoke rhymes with "Hay" and "coke" - rather than the much more comedy okie-dokie - and he is MC, talent scout and chief bottle-washer at the weekly XS Malarkey comedy night hosted by Bar XS in Fallowfield.

He smokes arty types' favourite, Marlboro Lights, and speaks with an accent which reveals his birthplace as Ludlow in Shropshire, only with an actor's affectation.

To read more of this feature, read Tuesday's M.E.N.