mostly david ephgrave

It was great to see Alan Partridge return to his much-longed-for home the BBC tonight. I've loved Alan pretty much since the beginning, when tapes of his early appearances in Radio 4's 'On the Hour' and 'Knowing Me, Knowing You' would pass between a few select friends who were in-the-know. I can still remember the first time I saw his face, in a trailer for the TV version of 'Knowing Me, Knowing You' - I didn't get to 'The Day Today' until a little later - and how excited seeing it made me; I was so obsessed, I recorded the audio of his ABBA medley with Rebecca Front with a tape recorder and would often sing along to it in Alan-style. The first series of 'I'm Alan Partridge' was a revelation, coming at the time I'd moved to college to do a BTEC in Performing Arts. Each week, I'd disappear to the upstairs bedroom where we kept our spare telly to watch the latest episode in near-religious style, to then pick it apart rev...

It was great to finally get things going today with my first show at this year’s EdFringe. The last few days saw two previews with no turnout, mostly due to the weather and the fact the festival hadn’t truly kicked off yet, but this went in my favour as it gave me a chance to run the show twice in the space, which made me feel more solid when approaching today. One thing I hadn’t quite prepared myself for was the energy required to keep it firing apace, or at least to give the show a sense of cohesion while still letting the jokes sit. I don’t help myself by starting at a lick, therefore making it hard to get my breath back; am I really that unfit? I had fifteen or so in today, which is more than enough to make the show work in the space. What was nice was there was a good range of ages, which reassured me, particularly when some of my references are quite niche. I don't think you need to know the people or things I’m discussing directly as the...