mostly david ephgrave

...and here we go with another ‘on-the-way-home-from-a-gig’ blog: strap in. Tonight I did a short set of mostly untested material at Touching Cloth. To be honest, I'm quite surprised I went, as this afternoon a black cloud descended on my head, telling me I couldn't and shouldn't do it. I think this mostly stemmed from the fact I've been feeling overloaded, and have been frustrated with the fact that all the time I'd like to devote to writing and rehearsing n ew material for Bath is being constantly snapped up by something else; by the time I've got to grips with the day-to-day admin of life, plus the admin for tomorrow’s Mostly Comedy, the impetus and the time to work on what I really need to do has gone. (I'm currently being distracted by the guy opposite me on the train, who’s listening music on his MP3 player and stamping his foot along like a five-toed fleshy metronome; assuming he has the requisite amount of lower-extremity digits.) By 3pm this afte...

I feel like most of my evening has been wasted, through trying to set up my new mobile phone. Such is the way with modern technology. While it’s always exciting to be armed with a new bit of kit, far too much time can be spent initially, in making it work. All those fail-safe ways to quickly transfer data or install a backup never seem to work in practise, or maybe it’s just me. It doesn’t help that every moment devoted to setting up my new handset should really have been given over to something else, such as compiling material for next week’s Bath Comedy Festival work-in-progress dates. I purposely upgraded my phone before I went to Bath, so I could make the most of its facilities for recording my sets and putting together the show. I’m still pleased I did this, I just wish I hadn’t taken so long to do things today, as it feels like another day was lost that could have been used for more important things. Other than wrestling with my new B...

Tonight I met with Mr Doggett to update our Public Liability Insurance and sign a few forms to register with a new accountant. I plan to so bloody reckless now we’re re-insured. I’ll dress solely in shell suits with my hair lacquered up to-the-max. Never before in the history of mankind will one person have been so inflammable; I’ll be the personification of the cast of Backdraft after a grossly misjudged publicity stunt; call me Wicker Man Ephgrave. ( ...though I've never actually seen it .) The only downside to our policy is it doesn’t protect us from everything you'd think. We’re not covered for any equestrian work conducted by us or someone else on our behalf, nor can we handle muskets, pistols or guns; there goes our proposed Three Musketers remake. We can’t perform at an altitude in excess of three metres without potentially falling financially foul should we injure anyone around us, so our fourth plinth physical theatre installation has been nixed. It offi...

Tonight, I performed at Angel Comedy at the Camden Head in Islington. It was nice to play a room with a real audience who were up for comedy, rather than a roomful of other comedians. I’d almost forgotten what it was like to wait for a laugh to subside before delivering a line. It was a genuine surprise and a welcome one at that. The club was run like a tight ship and was very well subscribed, and not just because it was a bank holiday weekend. The crowd were very up for it, sounding positively ‘American sitcom’ by the end of the night. I closed the first half, which was good, as it zipped by, and I always find being early on the bill preferable; it’s nice to be able to relax and have a drink, instead of having to keep your brain in performance mode. I feel I’ve turned a small corner in the last few weeks, regarding working alone. I’m a little less self-judgemental and a little more secure in my ability. ‘Little’ is the operative word o...

There’s something comforting about watching a programme or reading an article on a subject you know a lot about. Personally, I’m referring to The Beatles in this instance. I’ve just got home from the office, to switch on the TV and catch up on ‘The Nation’s Favourite Beatles No. 1’: a documentary that aired last Christmas, as a shameless promotional tie-in to 'The Beatles 1+’ (the DVD accompaniment to their singles collection, ‘1’). It’s a well-known fact among my friends - and to anyone who’s paid close enough attention to Glyn's and my radio show and / or stand-up - that I’m a bit of a Beatles nut. My brain is addled with Fab Four trivia. I became interested in them while at junior school, when I pulled out my mum’s Sgt Pepper LP to play 'When I’m Sixty-Four' to my elderly babysitter, because I assumed it might be her sort of thing, without realising that I was a couple of generations out. Listening to that album ignited a fascina...

We recorded the 24 th episode of ‘Doggett & Ephgrave: In Your Inner Ear’ tonight, ready for it to go out on Sunday. I wasn’t really in the right frame of mind for it this evening, and consequently felt it didn’t really gel, for the first hour at least. Somehow, we weren’t quite in the same mindset. It didn’t help that I foolishly started with a piece that relied on Glyn recognising the artist responsible for an audio clip, but hadn’t pre-warned him about it. This was unfair, as he was busily multitasking while running the desk and couldn’t remember the band’s name, which meant the segment fell flat. Things gradually picked up pace from that point, but it felt a little forced, though perhaps it won’t sound so band when I hear it back. To be fair, it’s not always going to be perfect (not anyone would say it ever is). Reaching our twenty-fourth programme and forty-eighth hour is pretty good going, and there has been lots of good stuff amongst it....

It’s nice to be at home tonight instead of doing a gig. I haven’t been in of an evening all week. I’m glad I’ve been productive, particularly when I want to get as much material run in as possible before my work-in-progress dates at the Bath Comedy Festival, but I also need a break. A consecutive run of late nights takes it out of you and make it harder to focus on writing when you need to do it. Consequently, tonight has been spent catching up on a little television, and having a long chat with my wife. You’d think we’d have run out of things to talk about, but it seems we haven’t; we haven’t consulted my Big Book of Icebreaking once. I like that we still have so much to talk about and are by no means bored of each other’s company. This bodes well for the future; I mean…imagine having to live with me. The smell alone is bad enough. I'll keep it brief this evening, as my bed and book are calling. Night night all; be good.

Tonight, I did a short spot at Touching Cloth on Folgate Street (I've shared this extra nugget of geographical information for anyone out there with a fetish for topography; you people make me SICK).  I felt more relaxed than I did last night, which helped me out with my set. The gig was sparsely populated, but they were a nice bunch. The guy who opened, who's name I didn't catch, was great; he had that right mix of confidence and likeability, which somehow made me feel more at ease with going on myself. The show had a different host to usual, Chester Constable, who was also very nice and comfortable to watch; he reminded me of my favourite 'likeable' comic, Tom Goodliffe.  The only fly in the ointment was when an act laughed sarcastically at an aside I made whilst chatting with the emcee, after leaving the stage. It was clearly for the benefit of the people he was sitting with; an irritating moment of feigning superiority , with the assumption I would...

Continuing my 'fit-as-many-gigs-in-before-April's-Bath-work-in-progress-dates-to-try-out-new-material' run, I did a short spot at Party Piece at Shaker & Company on Hampstead Road tonight. First off, I have to praise the venue for their exceptional vegetarian burgers (a phrase that has seldom been used before or since). I arrived an hour before I needed to sign in with the emcee, so I decided to make the most of the pub's gourmet burger selection, devouring my second veggie burger in so many days. Yesterday's was ingested whilst out on an Old Man Pub Crawl with my friend Steve at one of my favourite Hitchin pubs, the Half Moon. It was described as a beet & bean burger, which sounded violent; appropriately so, as the resulting patty was an alarming shade of blood red. It was delicious, but today's burger still knocked it out the park. Tomorrow, I'm gigging near Liverpool Street - and if there isn't a meat-free snack ...

Tonight, I thought I'd share the press release I wrote for next week's Mostly Comedy; partly as it may be of interest, but mainly because it's getting late, and I feel that going to bed would be more beneficial than staying up to write a blog post about today's adventures (which included a spot of dog-walking, a little writing and going out for a drink with my co-In-Your-Inner-Ear host Steve). So here it is, in all its comedy club-promoting glory. Pray silence for pure, unadulterated information: Press Release – 18.03.16 mostly comedy a monthly comedy and music club, at the sun hotel in hitchin While 31 st March’s instalment of Doggett & Ephgrave’s Mostly Comedy is officially sold out, there’s still a chance to snap up return tickets on the night. This month’s line-up includes stand-up from JAMES ACASTER and DOGGETT & EPHGRAVE and music from The Bluetones’ frontman MARK MORRISS . JAMES ACASTER has come a long way...

I listened to this evening’s In Your Inner Ear when it went out, so I could tweet the relevant pictures along with it, as per usual. I laughed quite a lot at the content, which is always a good sign. I sometimes got a little annoyed by my tone, but I guess there’s nothing new here; everybody suffers from the old ‘not liking hearing a recording of their own voice’ syndrome from time to time, though as a performer, you get over it pretty quickly, otherwise you’d never do anything. Seeing and hearing yourself goes with the territory (unless you’re Roger Daltrey in Tommy, that is; *rock opera reference*). Today was also one of those few occasions in my life when I felt the urge to catch up on some housework. First off, my budgies’ cage has needed cleaning out for an embarrassingly long time; so much so, it had got to the point where I could barely see the birds for the pile of birdseed shells. I also took out the recycling and the food bin and vacuumed my flat. That’s possibl...

I watched the pilot episode of The X Files tonight, having recently enjoyed the new series when it was shown on Channel 5. I was surprised by how much detail I remembered, despite having not seen it for a good - nay, fantastic - twenty years. Some of the shots were alarmingly familiar, which I can only put down to the fact I'd probably been quite tense watching it first time around, as a younger, more easily scared Ephgrave. It's funny how these things lurk in your subconscious.  I found it hard to get over just how young Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny looked, particularly as I'd only finished the new series the other week. That's not to say that either actor hasn't aged well; more likely that my perception of age has changed through getting older myself. Anderson looks positively foetus-like, which isn't surprising, as she was only in her early-to-mid twenties, while Duchovny was around the age I am today. This passing time thing's a bugger, wh...

I’ve just got home from recording this week’s ‘In Your Inner Ear’, which goes out on Sunday. The theme for tonight’s show – episode twenty-three, no less – was ‘No’. While my last sentence may sound like I’m channeling Frankie Howerd, I assure you I’m not; if I were, I would have followed that ‘No’ with a ‘Now, listen’. It was nice to record a new episode, as this was something we didn’t think we’d be able to do due for a while, due to Glyn’s and my lack of shared availability. This has now changed, meaning we have a little more time at our disposal. Tonight we tried out a new mixing desk that we’d bought primarily to enable us to record the show with us both in separate locations, should we not be able to find a time when we could both be in the same room (we haven’t fallen out). As it stands, don’t need this option as much as we did, but it was still nice to use better and smaller equipment than the cumbersome desk we’d been using to date. The so...

Today's been overshadowed by the sad news of Paul Daniels' passing. I was on my way to meet Glyn for breakfast when he text me to tell me the news. When I joined him we had long chat about the night Paul played Mostly Comedy last November; reminiscing about how excited we were to have him on the bill, and how bowled over we were by his and Debbie’s easygoing nature that night. Meeting your heroes can be a risky business; they have so much to live up to and so far to fall. We needn’t have worried in this instance. We were concerned the backstage facilities we could offer were lacking (our then-venue, the Market Theatre, has no dressing rooms), but they didn’t mind at all; we mucked in together, with Glyn happily chatting away with Debbie and the other act on the bill that night, Bec Hill, in the tiny auditorium that adjoins the venue, while Paul prepped his props on stage. We received a call from the Hertfordshire Mercury and BBC Three Counties today, who’d pi...

Tonight I did a short walk-in spot at the open mic gig Touching Cloth on Folgate Street, though by the time I went on, I was so tired, I’d lost faith in what I’d gone there to talk about. I went armed with a new five minutes, which, when it came to it, I did for the most part; though the room had lost interest by the time I took the stage. I got laughs out of dissecting what wasn’t working, as often seems to be the case, but this can be frustrating as the more you rely on this, you start to feel you haven’t enough good quality material in the first place. I’m being hard on myself, to be fair. Open mic gigs are tough, however well they’re run (and this one’s run splendidly). There’s just so many people on , and an audience can only take so much information. You end up with a distorted reading of what lines worked and what didn’t. At least I managed to for the most part get across the genesis what I’d written, and remain true to the ethos of the gig, which is all about tryin...

Tonight, I went to see Letters Live at the Freemasons’ Hall for the second year running ; an experience that was as moving, amusing and enriching as it was last time around (by which I mean it was ). It was great to hear correspondence from people from so many walks of life, and to once again be reminded of how we’re all much the same beneath the surface. Like last year’s show, it was the actors of the company that brought the readings to life the most; breathing truth and sincerity into the thoughts locked behind the words on the page. Yet again, it was an impressive line-up, including Jude Law, Benedict Cumberbatch, Rory Bremner, Juliet Stevenson, Timothy Carlton, Matt Berry and more. The audience were clearly impressed by the celebrity-heavy cast, yet this didn’t steal the thunder from the real stars of the evening: the writers whose lives we took a privileged peek into tonight. The most impressive star - turn of the night for me was the person providing the off-stage ...

It wouldn’t be a Monday without me turning to Twitter to subconsciously act out my jealousy of the University Challenge contestants' intelligence by picking on them so personally and unscrupulously   - so here goes. (I’m sorry for being such a git.) 8:03pm: Kirkman is like Scottish for church, man. 8:05pm: Paxman thinks Bennett's "cuticle". 8:06pm: Kirkman saw tonight's # UniversityChallenge as 'Dress-down Monday'. 8:08pm: Ormestad Frendem is Mednerf Datsemro backwards. 8:09pm: Ormestad Frendem's hair looks like it's parted the wrong way. 8:10pm: Ormestad Frendem: two bad hands at Scrabble. 8:11pm: Gard-Murray's beard perfectly matches his name. 8:12pm: Kaliski's dad was Pob. 8:14pm: Gard-Murray's jacket and facial hair are made from the same corduroy. 8:17pm: Ormestad Frendem's surname was formed from left-over letters...

Tonight, I did a short spot at the open mic night Big Nose Comedy in Kilburn – and it’s fair to say that the stars aligned for me in both a negative and positive way, as the sad passing of George Martin this week resulted in it being a Beatles-themed gig; a subject that’s right up my street; my zebra-crossinged-in-1969 street. (I’m referring to Abbey Road.) I was second on in the first half, which was nice, as it meant I could relax fairly early on in the evening, rather than spending the whole night trying to keeping my brain in gear. For some reason, I was very nervous just before I went on, to the point of having the shakes. I made sure I psychologically knocked these jitters on the metaphorical head with a mantra the Maharishi would have been proud of: “David, you’ve played bigger rooms than this. David, you’ve played bigger rooms than this”. I’ve performed at the Liverpool Empire as a fucking Beatle , damn it, so I can riff a bit about them fo...

I’m dog-and-cat-sitting for my mum this evening.   It’s nice to have a quiet night in with the animals and ‘the wife’ (in that order), in a proper house, like a proper adult and everything. In some ways it’s unnerving, as my mum’s pets are massively out-sized compared to my cat and two budgies at home. Her retriever Barley could make a solid case for dwarfing Digby, while her cat Chaser is just too lengthy for his own good; he’s the feline Ford Cadillac to my cat Millie's Smart car model. I’m enjoying the time away from work, having spent the afternoon holed up in the office, planning a set for a short spot I’m doing in London tomorrow. I feel my time there was wasted as, instead of running material that’s likely to end up in my show – which was the reason I took the gig in the first place – I found myself vaguely working up something to fit the theme for tomorrow’s gig, which appropriately for me, is ‘The Beatles’. In reality, I could have just stuck in a gag or...