mostly david ephgrave

Forty-nine years ago today, The Beatles stepped onto the roof of the Apple building on Savile Row for their last ever live performance - which was remarkably strong considering the circumstances - and while they were up there for less than an hour, they recorded two of my favourite songs of all time. One of them, I’veGot a Feeling , I’ve discussed here before, but tonight I’d like to sing the praises of their ode to the vulnerability of a new relationship; the soulful and searingly honest Don’t Let Me Down. What makes it work so well for me is John and Paul’s voices, which fit together perfectly and give the song its weight; that a cappella 5/4 bar that falls at the beginning of each phrase in the verse is a stroke of compositional genius that shouldn’t pass unnoticed as it does, yet somehow subliminally reinforces the risk the protagonist has put themselves under by revealing how much they need that other person, plus the way the vocals weave together emphasises...

I very nearly didn’t make it home in time to watch tonight’s University Challenge as I was out with a friend, though I did wind up missing Only Connect before it, which featured one of the stars of last year’s UC series, Powell, and a couple of his UC teammates being as foppish as ever; their Only Connect team were even called The Dandies, for a kickoff. While I did miss out on bonus Powell time, which is always a disappointment as the man-child’s such a gimp, I managed to make the most of my UC viewing, despite only getting in just prior to its broadcast; see below for exactly what was said. Bristol Vs. Newcastle (27.01.18) 8:32PM: Hewett may explode at any moment, with limbs flying to the far corners of the studio. 8:34PM: In years to come, Lowery will haunt the #UniversityChallenge studio, like an anachronistic ghost. 8:34PM: Bristol's mascot is a beached dolphin. 8:35PM: Bowes' look is inspired my a mi...

Over the last few days, I’ve been very organised (for me) and tidied up my computer desktop and email inbox. The latter was the most in need of attention and that’s an understatement; for a number of years now, I’ve had literally thousands of unread emails (just a little under four thousand, to be a little more detailed) and while they were all of no importance - and most could be deleted - I’m sure it will make a real difference, psychologically speaking, to not be confronted by such a big number when I log in. That’s not to say that I didn’t have a system for spotting if I had something to attend to; as ridiculous as this may sound, I always knew at which point my unread stack tended to total at - normally around the 3,420 mark - so anything above that would have just come in. This is similar to the bit in Spinal Tap when the documentary host asks Nigel Tufnell why he doesn’t just make ten louder instead of going up to eleven; there was logic to ...

I sometimes feel like a fictional adult. Actually, you'd better switch “sometimes” with “always”. It’s particularly evident when I pass someone on the street. It’s at times like this when I feel l'm just portraying the role of a normal, well-adjusted human being with a job and a family: the sort of person who has a mortgage (I've got one) and a pension (I'm out of my depth there) and who actively contributes to society, and not someone who owns two pairs of jeans and barely a pair of shoes and has no idea what PPI means. The only thing that alleviates my worry slightly is the vague glimmer of hope that I’m not the only one; there must at least be a few people who feel the same as me. Surely? Maybe? Whatever the case, it doesn’t change the fact that a man approaching forty has been deemed an adult in every culture since the dawn of time. So why can’t I get my head around it? I think it’s universal to not feel age deep down. People often say they don’t feel...

Tonight’s Mostly Comedy was a great way to kick off the New Year for the club, particularly thanks to the amount we raised on the door for the charity Mind , to mark Time to Change’s Time To Talk Day , which takes place on 1 st February.   I think a comedy club’s the perfect place to spread word of the importance of not shying away from the topic of mental health, nor dismissing clinical conditions such as depression as some kind of active choice, or weakness. It doesn’t seem to matter how much publicity there is for the subject - it’s certainly in vogue for political parties to promise to devote more money to tackle the lack of parity between mental and physical health - the misconceptions (and lack of actual funding) are rife. The statistic that’s often bandied around is how 1 in 4 people will experience a mental health problem in any given year, yet despite everyone knowing this, so much still has to happen for the stigma attached to be lifted; one of the bigg...

The grey hairs appearing at my temples think they’ve gone unnoticed, but they haven’t. At first, there was just one, of inconclusive greyness; the difference could have been due to hair product. Looking back though, I was burying my rapidly frosting head in the sand: why would my daily two-pronged matt clay and hairspray attack result in a white hair in exactly the same place? While I wasn’t bothered by this potential change, I couldn’t help but keep an eye on it, particularly post-haircut. That was the ultimate litmus test, with results showing up grey instead of purple (though the latter would explain Phyllis from Coronation Street). A few visits to the barber later and the results are in; someone’s follicles have reduced their melanin output and that someone is me . I’m not that concerned, to be honest; plenty of people grey far earlier than me. That said, it raises the inevitable question: how long before I switch from Grease-era John T...

I feel for the camera operators who had dreams of doing groundbreaking work, but get to film the torsos of fat people on the street for reports on obesity instead. It’s like the folk who photograph kebabs for takeaway menus, or Piers Morgan’s co-hosts on Good Morning Britain: they do a job no-one would envy. There are plenty who are worse-off, but their occupation still can’t bring much satisfaction; imagine being Susanna Reid just for a moment; she swapped cuddly Bill Turnbull for the Devil incarnate and can never go back. Whenever I see a news article about the overweight (of which I regrettably currently find myself on the cusp) I wonder if the people in the footage signed a release form for it; you’d have to be pretty fame-hungry (poor choice of wording) to agree to be featured in this context, even if your anonymity is reasonably secure. Or is the midriff copyright free? I don’t whore my trunk out for just anybody. Still, I suppose it ...

The plus side to my show being cancelled tonight, small as it was, was I was able to watch this evening’s University Challenge. I’ve only missed one episode in the whole series thus far, yet this didn’t stop me from receiving a couple of messages from people who know I tend to live-tweet it, expressing disappointment in my lack of commentary; perhaps this means I’m providing a service in some way, albeit a useless, frivolous one. Whatever the case may be, it was good to be able to resume my usual duties. As ever, there was plenty to mock; see below for the mocking I offered up: Oxford Brookes Vs. Merton - Oxford (22.01.18). 8:33PM: Oxford Brookes sounds like a war poet. 8:33PM: I've got an average age of thirty-six too. 8:34PM: Jeremy Paxman has two pet guinea-pigs called Come On and No. 8:37PM: Thomas looks like a child dressed as an adult...and he looks like he loves it. 8:39PM: Thomas, son of Herr F...

I’ve only got two more performances of last year’s show to go - tonight in London and next month in Leicester - and while I’m still proud of it, I realised yesterday why it’s so hard to keep hold of that. When I first performed a skeleton version of it at Bath Comedy Festival last April, I was already happy with the reaction it got; for me, it was nice to be doing something fresh, plus I was fortunate enough that the audience enjoyed it at this early stage. The following month I took a slightly more polished version to the Brighton Fringe which also went down well, and this continued to build across the various previews in June and July and into the (allegedly) finished version to Edinburgh. The problem psychologically is the negative by-product you pick up along the way. In most cases, every show is the first time that audience has seen it, yet inevitably I’ve been to every one (it would be weird it I wasn’t); and while there’s nothing wrong with having to approach it afr...

My dad came out of hospital today, which was good news all round. I was glad it was today and not Monday, when my mum will be at work and I have my show in Camden in the evening, or tomorrow when I’d be preparing for it. Also, it was just good to know he’d be back at home full stop, as I know he was getting sick of it (no pun intended). My wife and I went to pick him up early this afternoon and remarkably were back in the car - having gone up to the ward to help get my dad’s stuff together and then walked back to the car park - less than twenty minutes after arriving, which was pretty impressive, particularly considering my dad’s walking about has been minimal since he was admitted; perhaps it was his keenness to get home that helped it all be so speedy. After we’d got him back and had sorted a few things out for him, we returned home to a reasonably quiet evening. I decided to reserve any further work on my show for tomorrow and not today, though I don’t have much to do, ...

I wonder if anyone’s ever signed off a letter with “Please hesitate to contact me”? If they did, it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, as at least it would be honest; the world may even be a better place (if a more abrupt one). Just think how much time we’d save if we didn’t pussyfoot around and were straight. Take me as a case in point: I reckon at least half the things I do I really didn’t want to, until I painted myself into a corner and had no choice. That may even be a conservative estimate (with a small c, not a big one; we're not talking any of that ‘Boris Johnson / Michael Gove £350million-a-week-to-the-E.U.’ bullshit: unlike them, I have morals). That’s not to say we all need to be blunt, just truthful. After all, what appears the easiest option in the short term can be worse in the long-run if you have no faith in it: there’s little worse than going along with something purely through apathy. I wonder how many incompatible relationships did that? If you...

I’m too tired to write anything much of note today, partly because I’ve had a lot on and partly because I keep going to bed too late at the moment. It doesn’t help that I tend to get sucked in by my cat who - like now - chooses to sit on me in the evening and fall asleep on my lap for as long as physically possible if I’d let her. It’s nice to have her company and she’s always comforting, but I do let her keep me up for longer than I should. Part of the problem today was she’d spent much of the afternoon while I was rehearsing my show pestering me to sit down. She’s a creature of habit, who expects things to happen at certain times of the day, and there’s definitely a point late afternoon when she’d expect me to be on the sofa with her if I’m at home; God forbid I mess with the system. Speaking of runs, I enjoyed going over my show today, which was slightly surprising, considering the last time I did it I had an annoyingly crap review. Some...

Today was one of those ‘chasing your tails’ days, where I kept jumping from one thing to the next. It started with me meeting Glyn for breakfast, ostensibly to discuss work, but really to catch up more than anything. January's always the worst time of year for us to get together as he concentrates primarily on company-managing the Adult Panto tour, which has more dates this year than ever; it’s due to this that he’ll miss the first Mostly Comedy of 2018 next week. After that, I headed to the office to chase up a few potential line-ups for the forthcoming season and to order the artwork for my show in Leicester next month, which I edited last night. Once again, I find myself spending more time on admin than anything; I’d hoped to rehearse today, but everything else conspired to get in the way; hopefully tomorrow will be different. The main job I'd wanted to squeeze into today was getting a few posters and flyers for Phill Jupitus’ to...

I missed last night’s University Challenge (the only episode this series that I didn’t watch when it went out) but this didn’t stop a tweet I posted during last week’s edition from continuing to climb the social media charts. My nest-egg. I have a reputation for live-tweeting along with the programme - I know of at least one Twitter follower who has muted the University Challenge hashtag because of me, which can only be a mark of success - so the fact I didn’t watch last night’s show did my OCD no good. It seems I needn’t have worried, as apparently I’m not required to post sarcastic commentary to still have an online presence. Perhaps I should develop some software that'll generate my pithy critique by algorithm; it would certainly give me a break. What I can’t understand is how a tweet I posted a good - no: "fantastic" - 168 hours earlier was still being seen; if I knew, I'd just remove myself from the equation. At least sixteen people fav...

I’m not been feeling right for the last few days, which is probably just my body responding to the stress of my dad going into hospital; either that, or it could be thanks to when I managed to smack my head very hard on an overhead lamp after packing his stuff away in a cupboard on his ward after he went down to surgery. It was one of those classic moments when you stand up confidently as if there’s nothing above you, to find that something most definitely is. Having it happen when it did felt like the metaphorical icing on a very shit cake; ever since, I’ve felt dazed and out-of-sorts, though I suspect hitting my head was less the cause and more the final straw of a crap day. Whatever it was, it’s probably best I spend less time writing up my bonce-thumping antics now and more time going to bed, so I’ll recover from it.

Yesterday my dad went in for emergency surgery, which is obviously not the sort of situation you want to contend with. Thankfully all went well, the operation was pretty speedy and they were very happy with him, but the day still felt yawningly long, particularly in the morning, while we were waiting for him to go down to theatre. I caught the bus to the hospital at 6:45am to meet my mum so we sit with my dad until the porter took him through; he was lucky to be prioritized due to the urgency, so was first on the list that day, but the procedure still didn’t start until about 11:am, so inevitably we spent those four hours at a constant state of high alert, waiting for the moment to come. My role in these circumstances is to placate and reassure, which I don’t mind as it seems to help. That doesn’t mean I’m not worried too, but I tend to be quite good at retaining the information given to us by the medical staff, as well as reminding my family that things aren’t as ominous ...

Today I completed easily my least favourite task to do with running a comedy club (or putting shows on full-stop) and wrote my first press release of the year for this month’s Mostly. Actually, while it may be the first press release I’ve written this year (not "may be"; it is ) it’s not the first copy I’ve put together, having already supplied blurbs for Brighton, applications for Edinburgh and mailing list mail-outs for the club (and all the associated website listings and ticketing links that go with it), so I’d already done as much in all but name - so it’s no wonder I find it so tedious, when it’s the least satisfying and most time-consuming part of what I do. While I don’t enjoy it, I'm fortunate that it’s a job that hasn’t been so pressing recently (no pun intended), what with how often our dates sell out in advance, though I still have to write them even then, as you can’t run an event without promoting it, however well it’s ...