mostly david ephgrave

While there was no reason to doubt it, I was delighted by the excitement today's announcement that Dr. John Cooper Clarke will play July's Hitchin Mostly Comedy Festival provoked. I'd like to think my judgment of what our audience wants to see is pretty sound, based on the club's popularity, but every so often there'll be a slight undercurrent of worry, particularly when there's either a lot of money involved or the event's taking place at a different venue to usual. In the case of John Cooper Clarke, I'd been working on the booking for a few months and had every crossable appendage assuming the position in the hope it would come good, but knew all along it would only work if we held it at Hitchin Town Hall so we could get enough people through the door to fund it. This obviously meant whittling down a date that both John and the venue could do while striking a deal with both that wasn't too expensive when a show of this nature has more overhea...

My OCD has been suitably placated now the first two Hitchin Mostly Comedys of 2019 have sold out. While it's fair to say this is a common occurrence at the club these days, I'm never complacent; there's always a niggling concern a show won't do well and suddenly we're at risk of making a loss we can't afford. Again, there's been no evidence of this looking likely for years really, but there's always the possibility, and while things have been reasonably comfortable for the club financially for a little while, the last-minute cancellation of November's show with James Acaster did result in us writing off a profit we were counting on. Then purchasing some light & sound equipment left us playing catch-up ever since. There's also always the worry people will either lose interest or expect too much. In some ways the club's hands are tied by its success: last year saw a handful of big names perform who'd either never been on the bill be...

My God, it’s been an epic, yet satisfying week. It’s Day Five of our first week-long Mostly Comedy Festival and it’s been so hectic - what with running the Festival and keeping up-to-speed with my Edinburgh prep - it's pushed me horrendously behind with my blog posts; the God of Social Media will be livid, if such a thing exists. It’s fair to say both halves of Doggett & Ephgrave are now running on empty, though the fatigue is a sign of time well spent. The Festival's been a resounding success with three of the five nights sold out, and the other two were well-attended too. What’s particularly pleasing is how many punters have taken advantage of our special Gold & Silver Ticket deals, with a handful of people attending every gig; that, ladies and gentleman, is a festival defined - and let’s not forget last week’s gig at Hitchin Town Hall with Harry Hill and Simon Munnery too; we’ve had a stream of exceptional line-ups. We we...

In the ever-growing list of high-profile Mostly Comedys, last night's gig probably gets the prize for the biggest. Us with Harry Hill, post show (12.07.18 In terms of audience size, it won by a long chalk, with 350 people squeezed into our temporary home of Hitchin Town Hall to see Harry Hill and Simon Munnery, which is over twice the amount we’d normally fit in for a sold out date at the Sun and nearly four times the capacity of our old venue The Market Theatre Studio (are you enjoying these statistics?). We’d had no intention of selling so many if it weren’t for Harry’s availability changing, meaning we had to push the gig a day later and switch to the Town Hall as The Sun wasn’t available; this ended up working in the night’s favour, as a sizeable chunk of punters who missed out first time around had a second chance to book, ultimately leaving very few people disappointed, which was a positive outcome after so many pre-sales selling out so quickly leaving some reg...

Tonight I went down to the Market Theatre to pose for photos for my Edinburgh artwork. Pleasingly, it didn’t take long to get what we wanted, though it will be Glyn’s photoshop that will ultimately swing it and make the idea work. The premise is that I’ll appear to be falling through the air as if I’ve leapt from a plane or off the top of a building, to fit in with the ‘downfall’ theme. To make it work, I jumped up and down repeatedly in front of a green screen, ensuring I lifted my feet up behind me enough that the perspective will look right once we add me to the right backdrop; this seemed the most sensible way to do things, rather than arranging for me to actually leap from a great height. Earlier today, Glyn and I popped into Hitchin Town Hall to organise a few last-minute things for Thursday’s Harry Hill / Simon Munnery Mostly Comedy. What’s good is we managed to alleviate the majority of our concerns about what we know is not the most ...

Yesterday saw our second mailing list pre-sale for 12 th July’s rescheduled Mostly Comedy with Harry Hill that we also had to move to Hitchin Town Hall due to The Sun’s unfortunate lack of availability, though both the increased capacity and yesterday's subsequent sellout make the event the busiest and biggest in our ten-year history with over 300 people booked. Another advantage to the show taking place in a bigger venue is it has enabled people who missed out first time around a second chance to get in (we actually received a couple of emails to this effect). While it still sold out in less than a day, tickets were available for much of it, which corroborates the theory. I’m glad this was the case as I know some people have been frustrated with how difficult it’s become to guarantee scoring tickets for our most popular events what with the increased demand, not that there's a lot we can do about it. The only downside to the pre-sale taking place yesterday was I was in ...

So, today was the day we booked Harry Hill for Mostly Comedy. I’m well aware I just started a sentence with the word ‘so’, which is one of my personal bugbears, but I feel it’s appropriate in this context, on account of the fact it’s really quite impressive. I’ve been hoping to book him at Mostly for years, and it was in the last few months that it looked more likely it might happen eventually, but I didn’t expect it to be so soon; it’s certainly a lovely way to see us into our Summer break (when I’ll be in Edinburgh, so it’s less of a break for me). Glyn and I met him once briefly, back in 2007, when I was doing the adult panto The Emperor’s Newd Clothes (which was a very clever joke) at Wycombe Town Hall on the same night he was on in the main house. We shared a quick exchange on walking past him backstage, tucking into his complimentary sandwiches; I can’t remember what was said now, as it was all so quick. My favourite moment of the evening was...