mostly david ephgrave

I spent £79 on a replacement charger for my MacBook today; expensive, much? It’s not every day you send nearly eighty quid on a lead with a plug on the end of it…and it’s never a good day when you do; there are so many things I would have rather used the money on. It’s like when someone buys you a functional, yet dull household appliance as a Christmas or birthday gift; you know it’s useful, but you’d rather they’d given you anything but. Not so long ago, my dad treated me to a dehumidifier, and while I was grateful for a marginally less steamy bathroom, it was hard to work up much excitement about it; it would have been cheaper just to push the window open a bit. Unfortunately, the new charger was a necessary evil, as one of the two I own decided to fray to the point of no longer being usable a few weeks back, and I’m sick of having to carry the other with me each time I walk to my office, instead of keeping one of them there. I also need to have

Today, I did the nicest of nice radio interviews to promote next week’s St Albans Mostly on Radio Verulam, followed by the nicest of nice halloumi salads in the café below the studio. Me being me, I was nearly late, after missing the bus I had in mind, for the second bus to never come, making the whole bus-catching thing a third-time lucky experience. The first one would have taken me to St Albans direct, while the third meant a change in Luton, which I made in good time, for the connecting bus to be the tardy one; I disembarked at the stop nearest the studio with five minutes to spare and no idea which direction to take; after some vague pointers from a passerby who seemed more lost than me, I made it by the skin of my teeth (my teeth are very skinny). Today’s biggest setback was the lack of a Glyn Doggett, who’s away this week, tour-managing a show in Scotland. While I would sooner have shared the interview with him, I managed to stave off th

I find myself trying to avoid negativity at every turn at the moment, which is particularly hard when you venture near the internet.  I know sometimes I’m the one complaining, be it here or on Twitter - or just shouting at my television - but I wish we spent more time celebrating the good instead of looking for the worst in everything, particularly when coming from an uninformed viewpoint. For example, I read an article today, which as an aside threw out the statement, "Carole King could never sing”; I don't think we need dignify that with a response. The problem is, we live in a society where it’s become fashionable to tear people down instead of build them up; Simon Cowell, Piers Morgan and the Daily Mail, I’m talking to you. All three examples will spout on relentlessly from a point of complete ignorance and sadly, a disquieting proportion of people lap it up. It’s like drivers slowing to look at a road accident or the abundance of magazines discussing whether celeb

Today I did one of the few household jobs I’m capable of and fixed our toilet flush with a coat-hanger. (Oh, the glamour.) You’d think I would have picked up more skills by now but, outside of my toilet-fixing trick, rewiring a plug or replacing the fuse wire in our extremely antiquated fuse-box, I’m pretty useless. Admittedly, I once repainted my bathroom, but I wouldn’t say I did the best job ever; more like somewhere in the Top Ten. Housework’s a different matter; I’m a dab hand with the iron and a mean-machine when it comes to washing up. The one that puzzles me that people apparently find difficult is doing the laundry; there’s an advert running at the moment for a pod-based detergent you just throw into the drum, which seems to be labour under the misapprehension that pouring liquid is the height of skilled work. The question is when do you adopt these handyman (or handywoman) skills? Is it all part-and-parcel with becoming a

Fifty years ago today, we lost one of our finest comic actors (and my personal favourite), the vastly underrated Tony Hancock.  Hancock's a funny one as far as popular culture is concerned in that, despite being so successful in his time, drawing massive audiences on TV and radio and commanding some of the highest fees of the era, he has probably passed a lot of younger people by. This is a shame, as much of his finest work is just as accessible and enjoyable today; listen to or watch an episode of Hancock’s Half Hour at random and I’d nigh-on guarantee it’ll make you laugh pretty quickly, plus you’d be able to draw parallels between Hancock’s obvious character traits of frustration and exasperation with more modern-day sitcom creations like Basil Fawlty, Father Ted and Alan Partridge. Part of the reason he’s less known to younger audiences is probably due to the fact the poor-quality film-stock of the surviving TV episodes means they're seldom rebroadcast. At l

I’m aware time is ticking regarding this year’s Fringe, though I’m trying my best to be measured in my response and not be overwhelmed by it. I’m finding it hard to get in the right frame of mind this year, and while there’s a sense things are moving forward at my work-in-progress shows, I’m weary of talking myself up. I hate it when the process starts to feel so serious as that’s the worst frame of mind for writing comedy. This is why I’m not going to labour the point today as I’ll only blow smoke under the harder parts of what I’m doing; sometimes I don’t want to be asked about it, by myself or by anyone else. The best approach is to be gentle and delicate and only dip in and out of it as much as is necessary. It’s been a hard few years of working alone from which I’d like a break. The good news is now able to pay myself more for the effort I put into Mostly Comedy, but the bad news is it still takes up too much energy. I’m hoping I can begin to strike a more healthy balance, t

The dropping of two new songs from Paul McCartney this week, combined with a warm and spirited appearance on the James Corden segment Carpool Karaoke, definitely bode well for the release of his next album ‘Egypt Station’ in September. The guy belting out ‘Come On to Me’ isn't a 76-year-old; in fact I think it's all a con. I’d happily fund research into whether 18 th June 1942 really is McCartney’s birth-date. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, but the energy of the man - and his want to keep making music - is as extraordinary as it is envious. I don’t know how he does it but I’m grateful he does; if I can approach life and work with the same zest if I reach his age, I’ll be winning. I've never subscribed to the theory that an artist's early career is the only part worth listening to. Of course, the insane level of creativity McCartney exhibited from 1962 to 1970 (or even from 1970 to 1980) is practically without parallel,

Tonight’s Mostly Comedy had a very special headliner - true to form - in Simon Day and was a great gig all in all, though the last few hours before the show were a little frenetic, so we went into it pretty stressed. June's Hitchin Mostly Comedy line-up: (clockwise from top) Simon Day, Spring Day and Lorna Shaw. If there’s one thing I could eliminate from the whole Mostly Comedy experience it would be the tendency for a race-to-the-finish (or more accurately, a race to the start) with no backstage to disappear to to get your head together for it; just a dressing room would do, rather than slipping into the gents’ (which has the world’s slowest closing outer door) feeling sweaty and low status, hoping you won't first meet meet the main act when they burst in on you in your underwear. Running the club means constantly switching hats, much like that old, chaotic Tommy Cooper sketch, and the lack of a proper backstage area is often the

I spent most of today in a Corby pub garden with my friend Stephen, which is something of a rarity (particularly the Corby part) but a pleasant diversion nevertheless. I guess it’s surprising we can still manage to fill a day with such easy flowing conversation, particularly when you consider how difficult we find interaction with the public in the outside world, but then we have a lot of past history (not to be confused with future history, which is a confusing topic). We managed to cover a lot of ground we’d fallen behind on thanks to Steve’s recent move to the midlands. I caught the train from Luton to Corby to meet him, which was actually a lot of fun, without a single trouser press in sight. It’s a shame he moved away as it was inevitably much easier to meet when he lived down the road in Hitchin, but we do our best to work around it - and if his changed address gives us reason to spend the day catching up in a ub garden then so be it.

What was the first thing my dad said to me today when I walked up the street toward him as he chatted to one of his neighbours? Was it, “Hi Dave”, “Hello” or “How are you?” No. It was, “ You’ve put on weight”. Who cares if it’s something I'm self-conscious about, that general etiquette dictates you don’t point out? With my dad, you head straight for the nub of the matter: do not pass go and do not collect £200. So it was that I was thrown headfirst into a conversation about the side-effects of the tablets I'm taking; so thrown off-kilter by the inappropriate observation, all I could say was, “Thanks for pointing that out.” When it comes to this stuff, my dad has form. The most legendary example of unfiltered Barry Ephgrave among my friendship group has to be the time we went on holiday with a few of his workmates and my friend Chris, when I was a teenager. We were eating in a chip shop when I accidentally put so much ketchup on my food I wondered out loud if should get

Billy Joel's ‘Lullaby (Goodnight My Angel)’ is one of the most heartrending songs I know. I have a theory about music that touches you: it has the power to stop time. There are a handful of songs I give my full attention to any time they come on and this is one of them; it’s searingly honest without a trace of artifice and that’s what’s so special about it; Joel’s love for his daughter as he tries to answer her question, “What happens when we die?” whilst in the midst of divorce from her mother glistens from every note with no word or sound out of place; it's perfect. The song came up in an unlikely situation only last month: while I was chatting to Bobby Davro before we shared the bill at Mostly Comedy. He was telling me how he’d recently learnt the harmonica part to 'Piano Man'; painstakingly going over it repeatedly until he mastered it, much to the frustration of his daughter (it’s not the nicest instrument to listen to when y

Today I met my PR at The Ivy for a catch-up and to discuss our plans for this year’s Edinburgh. It’s great to work with someone I get on with so easily, who makes me feel positive about my ability and whose opinion I trust; there’s a definite sense we’re both singing from the same hymn sheet and while we didn’t get as many people in to see last year’s show as we would have liked, he still brought lots of positive attention to me while I was up there; more than I’d had in the past. Ultimately, you need someone to hand over the promotional side of performing on the Fringe to, as it’s too much to do yourself with any kind of authority. I’ve tried it in the past when working with Glyn and you never do yourself justice; too much is chased up too late and I suspect you may even end up being taken less seriously. It’s also nice to have a degree of separation from it all; you don’t always want to be the first port-of-call, nor do you necessarily want to read your reviews if you can help

Sometimes, a venue’s understanding of what you need to put on a show can vary considerably. The Usual Suspects; posing with Reginald D Hunter at last night's London Mostly Comedy (14.06.18) Such was the case at last night’s gig, which took place in the restaurant of an aircraft museum, where we arrived to find the only staging available was a single 1x2metre rostrum that could barely fit a performer on it, let alone a mic stand too. Thankfully, after a little gentle pushing to get the staff to search the other spaces on site, they managed to find a few more blocks to bolster our bijou stage. I don’t know what we would have done without them; it’s not like we were presenting a small-scale open mic night: the acts appearing were in the top tier of their game. We’d also been as clear as we could in the lead-up on what we needed, and ended up supplying all the equipment bar the stage, which we’d left in their hands. This wasn’t the on

Could this be the world’s most sinisterly concealed door? I’ve walked by this strange - would you say, “promotional”? - hoarding of Hitchin close to those two monoliths, Argos and the Town Hall, on many an occasion in the past, but I’d never noticed the security lock until today, which literally made me double-take; to be so discreet suggests someone’s trying to hide something (a door presumably). It’s so well disguised, if anyone walked past as it opened, it would make those pedestrians jump out of their skin, which would be a messy business. The question is, how much do the people behind that door want to bring on a coronary? If they don’t and continue opening it suddenly, heart attack rates in North Hertfordshire will skyrocket; people will walk down Brand Street in Hitchin in a state of acute panic, lashing out at anything that moves. Still, it would make for a quick getaway; you could turn a corner, open the door and disappear in a flash. It would the perfect p

Today I continued the work I was doing yesterday, whittling down a jokes’ list to send to my PR before we meet on Friday, and watching the video of my extended work-in-progress set from May’s Hitchin Mostly while making detailed notes. It felt good to be working extensively all day, knowing I’d squeezed as much as I could out of the time. The most pleasing aspect of my set that night was it was surprisingly relaxed considering the circumstances, with a good percentage sitting comfortably together in a way that related to the show’s title. Watching it also reminded me there’s nothing wrong with taking your time over a story without trying to race to the next laugh - and while some of my delivery was rushed, a lot of it landed well. My only concern was a lot of the positive reaction at the gig was fed by the ad-libs that came about from moments specific to that night alone, and while this was as much a part of the performance as the prepared material

I’ve spent much of the evening compiling one-liners from my Edinburgh show to be submitted to the press for consideration for their 2018 best jokes’ lists. I feel a twinge of pressure, as I was lucky enough to feature in couple of these lists last year. It was completely unexpected, so in that sense, it’s probably best to remember I had no inkling anything I’d put forward might stand out; it was just a luck-of-the-draw thing. To frame it more positively, the fact it even happened meant I must have been doing something right, so I can only approach it the same way this year and leave it to chance; it’s not like it means anything anyway: it’s all arbitrary. Finding jokes in my material is a bit of a struggle anyway, as it’s not really how I write. The only place you’re liable to see a one-liner from me is on Twitter and that’s solely due to the episodic nature of it; on stage, I’m more likely to tell a story - or share something visual - than do a gag; jokes have never been to my t

There’s been a lot of mockery of the festival Labour Live in the media lately, but imagine what the Tory equivalent would be like, with music from James Blunt, comedy from Jim Davidson - and lectures on keeping your hair as soft as goose-down from Boris Johnson, how to form all opinions from a point of utter ignorance from Katie Hopkins and how not to change a nappy from Jacob Rees-Mogg. Not everything has to be an instant landslide success to be valid; at least the Labour Party are trying to connect with younger supporters, and while it’s not had the massive interest they might have hoped, even the most lackadaisical Labour arts event would cack all over a Conservative one; and if the Tories need a social gathering, wasn’t Thatcher’s funeral enough? I just find the Tories so out-of-step. Take my local MP Bim Afolami for example, who’s on Twitter and Facebook, but practically in a broadcast only sense. He also manages to smile identically in every

Today’s been a day for mass admin, and while that normally makes me frustrated I’m not using the time to be creative, I can at least rest safe in the knowledge I’ve done my best to clear the decks so I can work on my show next week. Next week’s a busy one, with a couple of hospital appointments and a blood test and to contend with, interspersed with a special one-off Mostly Comedy at London’s RAF Museum on Thursday (because comedy loves planes) and a work-in-progress date in Camden on Sunday. Out of all of these things, Sunday’s gig is my personal priority as I don’t want to waste any chances to get my Edinburgh show together, but I suspect it’s going to be the thing I spend the least time on, once everything else gets in the way. That’s why I worked so hard today to tie up any lose ends, in the hope I’ll be able to focus my energy on writing next week, though I find days with a medical appointment in their midst become more about the appointment than anyt

I managed to get my daily dose of escapism today watching the latest installment in the Jurassic Park franchise, ‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’, or as I call it (in tribute to Goldblum returning to the castlist), ‘Jeffrassic Jeff’. While I thought it was great and, if anything, better than the last film, I must prefigure this by saying there wasn’t enough Jeff. But then, there never is. I don’t think any film in the history of cinema has had enough Jeff in it, even if you rolled all his screen work into one big Goldblum-a-thon; I once walked past him backstage at the Old Vic and even the corridor we were in didn't have enough Jeff in it, and Jeff was actually there. While Troy McClure's one-time fast-talking agent didn’t feature as much as I (or anyone with a pulse) would have liked, the film still gripped me throughout, and rivaled ‘The Lost World’ for the role of best sequel of the series. While they did a great job reimagining the series with ‘Jurassic World’ they’v

Today, I met my friend Rob in London for one of out not-as-regular-as-we'd like catch-ups. We spent most of the time sat outside the Spice of Life in Soho, where we became bait for beggars (which I think is the name of a Rolling Stones album) and despite responding to everyone who asked for change as politely and apologetically as we could - probably more than most would - we seemed to antagonize them more than if we'd said nothing at all. Their situation's an extreme one, of course, but you do start to get worn down by everyone's rudeness. A particular favourite of mine is being forced to step into a main road because a group of pedestrians won't budge to let you past. This happens so regularly it's practically become the norm and, my God, is it tiring; why can't we just help each other out? As well as avoiding beggars' eyeslines, Rob and I just generally caught up. I asked him if he might be interested in directing my Edinbugh show (provided he can fi

I’ve been looking forward to the latest installment of ‘Take it Away: The Complete Paul McCartney Podcast’, which became available today, as it covers the album 'Flaming Pie' - an album I have great affection for that kicked off a bit of a late-career resurgence for Paul - and while I’m only halfway through Part One and am intrigued by the polarized feelings it's evoking, one comment really stuck in my throat, when one of the hosts said, “It sounds depressed and tired to me”; well yes: his wife was dying. I know it wasn’t intended callously; it goes without saying that they have a lot of love for the man - they wouldn’t devote so much time to discussing his music if they didn't - but it still surprised me, perhaps partly because it’s so different to my perception of it. I’m not saying the album’s perfect; there are definitely a few low points on it, but there are also some gems, and if there's a tiredness lurking beneath the surface, this could stem from the b