Benidorm’s Oliver Stokes now – from ‘obsessive’ fan to fatherhood and career change

Oliver Stokes, 25, who played Micheal Garvey in the hit ITV sitcom from 2007 to 2015, was just 10 years old when he achieved fame. The former Hull child star, who is now a father-of-one, recalls an elderly obsessive fan even though he is only a few years old.

At last year’s Benicon, a fan convention for Derren Litten’s iconic comedy series, Oliver tells the Mirror, “There was this old woman, and she turned up on about three or four occasions with sweets for me.” “She was really odd as well. They]the show’s production staff] used to sort of say, ‘ Yeah, we’ll give them to him. ‘ You know, and then they’d just be like, ‘ We are just going to throw them away, because you don’t know what’s in them. ‘ She was nice, and I’m sure it was all kosher, but she was actually quite obsessed.

While Oliver was on Benidorm playing the savage youngster who ran amok around the Solana Hotel pool, his grandparents took care of him. “I had to do a minimum of three hours of schooling a day, which was an absolute bonus”, he jokes. “But in a way, it wasn’t really the best because I didn’t really pay attention or do much work. Oh well, it was an experience”.

He had a lot of laughs on the set of the hilarious ITV show, which also had Siobhan Finneran as his mother Janice Garvey, Sheila Reid as his grumpy grandmother Madge, and Steve Pemberton as his father, Mick, despite some of the jokes going over his head. “The scene of the stag do, where we were all in the reception, it took us hours just to film the tiny little snippets. Because it was just hilarious, Oliver claims, “we just kept breaking down in tears all the time.”

“When Adam Gillan]who played hotel guest Liam Conroy], turned up in those Y fronts and said ‘ I’ve come as a premature ejaculation’. Unbelievable. Even at the age of 10 I found it funny. I don’t think I knew what it meant but everyone else was laughing, so I just laughed. He explains that the mere fact that everyone else is in stitches only added to his hilariousness.

Oliver has since taken a step back from acting and is now a successful tradesman, saying, “It came to the point where I just assumed I wanted a guaranteed monthly income rather than the uncertainty of when your next job is going to come.” If the right thing happened, I’d love to return to the past, but who knows? He runs a fish bait business called Active Baits out of a passion for fishing in addition to taking care of his toddler, Archie.

Source: Mirror