mostly david ephgrave

Today, I did a couple of runs of my show to remind myself of it ready for my dates at Leicester Square Theatre at the end of the week. These went much as I’d expected, with the first run feeling a bit scratchy and indistinct and the second feeling more robust. It’s always the way when you’ve put something down for a little while to pick it up again: you start off with the sense of it pretty much intact but without the finite detail, then the rest of it starts to come back; all it should take is a little tinkering with the detail tomorrow morning and then another full run in the afternoon to get it back up-to-speed. It didn’t help that my vertigo is still pretty bad, which makes concentration difficult, but I should be okay as long as I don’t overdo it. It’s frustrating though, as working through it today was very tiring, as everything feels twice as hard (but the good thing is I don’t moan about it). The other thing I did today was finalise...

Once again, tonight’s episode of University Challenge was a largely Monkmanless environment, with no-one of enough character to marvel over with humorously. Okay, we were reunited with Ulster Milliken’s slightly threatening look and the odd comical voiceover from Roger Tiling, but there was still too little going on to really rouse your interest; Paxman was as rude and dismissive as ever, but that’s par for the course when he’s about. See below for my tweets from tonight; hope you enjoy them. Warwick Vs. Ulster (27.11.17) 8:01PM: Jeremy Paxman; oh, so weary. 8:02PM: "I'm from the Welsh borders area"; very vague, Charlotte; what are you hiding? 8:04PM: I'll show you MY French region 8:05PM: I know I said this last time, but...'Milliken'. 8:06PM: "Juno?"; I don't know...do you? 8:09PM: TRIVIA: McDaid's son replaced George Dawes as scorekeeper on Shooting Stars in 2010. 8:11PM: Salter looks ...

Yesterday, I met my friend Stephen in his new hometown of Rothwell, which was my first chance to visit him since he moved about a month ago. It’s been a bit strange not having him as local as I’m used to for the past few weeks. He had lived in Hitchin for just over a year, but had been based in Stevenage prior to that, so it had always been easy to meet up with little notice. Even when he wasn’t living in the same town as me, he was working here, so I’d often give him a wave when I walked past his shop. He’s the friend I’ve known the longest that I still see regularly, and seldom a week would go by when we wouldn’t meet for what’s become affectionally known as our Old Man Pub Crawls, to swap stories of our various work and life frustrations, and just generally catch up. The great thing I discovered yesterday was it’s easier and cheaper to get to Steve’s by public transport than I’d originally thought; until then, I’d been looking at trains via Lond...

Another week, another episode of Strictly, and another compilation of my tweets; read them and weep (if this sort of thing makes you emotional): 6:56PM: Tess looks like a gangster with their jacket over their shoulders. 6:58PM: Is Tess off out? 7:01PM: *Idea for a Bruce Willis-starring sequel shot in London called Die Shard* 7:03PM: Is someone else doing Tess' arms for her tonight? 7:07PM: Peter Kay has only just finished reading out the terms & conditions. 7:08PM: I wish someone would tick MY dream box. 7:11PM: Gorka surreptitiously using Alexandra's feet to clean the floor there. 7:18PM: In the middle of the, I go walking in the, in the middle of the, I go walking in the, in the middle of the, I go walking in the, in the middle of the...etc. 7:19PM: "Those aren't pillows..." 7:21PM: Oh for God's sake, Tess, we heard what the judges just said; you don...

Yesterday saw the second sold out Mostly Comedy in a row, though this time we were playing host to a line-up who’ve all performed at the club in the past; one of them, very regularly. (The bill - in case you're wondering - was Lucy Porter, Phil Kay and Brodi Snook.) I think it was inevitable yesterday’s show would be more relaxed than the day before, as we had less to prove by nature of the fact we knew everyone on the bill, and the gig hadn’t had the same dramatic ‘selling out in fourteen minutes to be cancelled and then reinstated’ lead-up. That said, there’s always a risk you’ll keep telling yourself it will be easier for you to be too laid back and make mistakes. Phil Kay, on top form last night (23.11.17) The glaringly big difference was I was hosting alone, as Glyn was in Wimborne, kicking off the adult panto tour he company manages every year. On paper, this shouldn’t have been too much of a challenge, as I was turning up t...

Last night, Jack Dee played Mostly Comedy; something we would never have dreamt would happen when we started the club, back in 2008. Jack Dee at Hitchin Mostly Comedy (22.11.17) I regularly have to catch myself when another big name comes to Hitchin, which happens these days with alarming regularity. In 2017 alone we’ve hosted an impressive list of acts who’d never been to Mostly before, such as Ardal O’Hanlon, Reginald D Hunter, Mark Watson, Angelos Epithemiou, Katy Brand and Hal Cruttenden, not to mention some of our favourite regulars, like Arthur Smith, Norman Lovett, Richard Herring and Hattie Hayridge. For an event that started solely as an excuse to write more material, it’s crazy how it’s snowballed, and having a household name like Dee come to town is the icing on the cake; I’m already searching my mind for who to try to book next. Ivo Graham at last night's gig. The unexpected treat for many last night was Ivo Graham's set, which wa...

Tonight, Phill Jupitus’ forthcoming appearance at Mostly Comedy in March next year sold out to our mailing list in just a couple of hours, showing once again that our regulars are a splendid bunch. I was intrigued to see how quickly tickets for the show would go, what with the fact it’s still a few months away, the price is slightly higher than usual (as it’s Phill’s full tour show rather than a usual club night) and what with the disappointment from those who missed out on tickets for the Jack Dee still ringing in my ears, but it turns out that none of these things had a negative effect. We hadn’t actually intended on putting the event on sale for a few weeks yet (to give some breathing space after all our recent fast-selling dates) but brought it forward to coincide with the on-sale date for the rest of Phill’s tour, which is from tomorrow at 10am, but once again, our pre-sale means there’ll be nothing left for that, which is a great position to be in; i...

Tonight’s University Challenge was - as with her last appearance on the show - completely overshadowed by St John’s Cambridge’s McKeown’s outfit. As my first tweet of the evening put it, she looked like a walking affectation; There’s a slim chance that her style choices formed completely naturally over time, but I, for one, doubt it. She’s like a child dressed as an adult, and an irritating adult at that; if she wrote an autobiography it would be filed under fiction (I think I’ve made my point). See below for a record of my live tweets from tonight, for posterity, like: St John's - Cambridge Vs. Corpus Christi - Cambridge (20.11.17) 8:02PM: McKeown is a walking affectation. 8:04PM: Roberts looks like Langly, one of the Lone Gunmen from the X Files. 8:04PM: Roberts should smoke a pipe. I hope he smokes a pipe. 8:07PM: McKeown looks like that English teacher at secondary school you never connected with, wh...

It’s hard to fathom it, but Paul Daniels appearance at Mostly Comedy was two years ago today. Nothing will ever top that gig for me. We’ve been fortunate to play host to some truly fantastic acts in our nine years, but when your childhood hero performs at your club and you get to spend a good few hours in his company, you have to sit up and take note. I can clearly remember the huge smile that crossed my face when I walked down to the venue, knowing what was ahead  “I’m just going to enjoy today”, I thought to myself, and enjoy it I did. I met Glyn this evening to discuss our plans for our two shows this week, and the subject of our Daniels-iversary inevitably came up; it was a benchmark for the both of us. We also talked about how pleased we are about Debbie McGee’s reinvigorated popularity as a result of her clearly knocking Strictly out of the park (despite ending up in tonight’s dance-off). At risk of feeding the cliché, she really is lovely and deserves to be ce...

Tonight saw the much-lauded Blackpool week of this year’s series of Strictly, which couldn’t really help but be a little anti-climactic, much like a trip to Blackpool is generally. The ballroom was a sight to behold of course, and some of the routines were fun, but it didn’t set me alight as a whole. I particularly liked Jonnie’s tango to the Eurythmics’ Sweet Dreams and Davood’s paso to Live and Let Die, but this as much down to the music choices as the routines. This is often the case for me, as I always prefer the dances that naturally fit with the song than those where the connection is a little clunky, like Mollie and Debbie’s were tonight for me; sometimes the routines can be too concept-heavy, which is risky if the concept isn't seamless. I’m a bit concerned about Debbie not staying tonight, though if that’s the case, I think it will be more to do with the slightly messy idea than her actual dance capability. Hopefully this will be enoug...

My washing machine decided to die mid-spin yesterday, which is ironic, as my vertigo’s currently so bad I may as well have my head stuck inside it. (If it was still working, but had no water in it; oh, you know what I mean.) To be fair, it had a good innings, as I’ve owned it for seven years (the washing machine and not my head, which has been about my person for thirty-six and counting). I kind of knew the game was up when I did a general wash in the morning, for it to make a screechy rattly sound, the like of which I’d never heard before. Like all pretend adults, I shrugged and told myself it would be all right later, but this was my first mistake; my second was to attempt a jeans wash in the evening for it to decide enough was enough and claim my trousers as its own. I managed to convince it to relinquish them eventually, but now the door’s locked again with a small puddle of water in the drum and nothing I can do about it. (What an exci...

Today I confirmed four work-in-progress dates at next year’s Brighton Fringe in May, thus setting in motion the whole ‘putting together a new show for 2018’ process. At the moment, I’ve no real idea what this show will contain, but the action of getting some dates in the diary is at least a bit of a catalyst. I’ve not been doing much in the way of writing over the past few months as I haven’t really been in the mood for it, but I know I need to start chipping away at new material so I can make the most of the time I still have to try things out; there’s plenty of opportunity to do this, but the sooner I get going the better. I hope I can opt for a similar process to this year, when I managed to get just the right balance between working precisely on it and keeping a light touch; this more relaxed approach made the whole thing a lot more fun than previously, as well as making for a better show (in my opinion). The other thing I did today was...