At just 13 years old, Eros Vlahos is undoubtedly the youngest stand-up comedian working in Britain – but at the moment, he’s throwing himself around the photographer’s studio to Peter Andre’s “Mysterious Girl” with wild abandon. His fluoro trainers have been kicked off, and his long blonde hair is flying.

Last August, Vlahos performed to packed houses at the Edinburgh Festival. Deliciously, his venue was opposite that of Joan Rivers, aged 75. But, with a showtime of 3.15pm, he still had some time to kill before curtain up. Did he spend that time chewing his fingernails, and agonising over punchlines? No. He played video games right up to the wire, and unwound after the show with “a lemonade in the bar”.

Starting out at James Campbell’s Comedy Academy 4 Kids, Vlahos had a Comedy Store gig under his belt by the age of ten, and he now writes observational material based on his family and his (regular, non-performing arts) school. With a slide show positing historic twists on video games, he suggests Grand Theft Tudors and Need for Speed: Victorians as suitable learning aids, while threatening any child-unfriendly audience members with his “kiddie germs”.

“My teachers don’t know that I’m on stage, spilling all their secrets behind their backs,” he says, grinning mischievously. With a notebook kept by his bed for ideas, and a workshopping process in which his parents act as a test crowd, he’s been mentored by the likes of Irish-Iranian comic Patrick Monahan. “He helped me with talking to the audience at the start of the show. But often I don’t understand what the people I speak to do for a living.” He also has a cunning heckler defence plan. “I’ll give them a colouring-in sheet and some crayons,” he says, “but so far, I’ve only been heckled by my brother, who shouted ‘Picachu’. And he was four at the time.”

Having recently discovered the ukulele (“I can play Nickelback’s ‘Rock Star’”), Vlahos says that “like most kids” he likes video games, swimming and tennis. He can “barely score a goal” in football, but is wicked at FIFA on the PS3, and consoles me over not having completing Super Mario Galaxy. “Oh dear...” he sighs.

As for the future, he’s hoping to do Edinburgh again, just as soon as he’s written a whole new show. And like a true pro, he claims the toughest thing about comedy is being expected to be funny all the time. “If you tell people what you do, they come up and say, ‘Tell us a joke!’” He smiles. “But that’s like going up to a baker and saying, ‘Bake me a loaf of bread, then!’”

Text Wendy Roby | Photography Ellis Scott
As featured in Dazed & Confused January Issue.