mostly david ephgrave

Yesterday, we released a new episode of More Than Mostly Comedy , featuring an interview with the excellent Tony Hawks , which we recorded a fortnight ago - our second new MTMC both in a month and since the club relaunched in 2023. That 'our' has been subject to a personnel change since Mostly was last a functioning entity. I now host the podcast with Dan Graham, who also now runs the club with me. I suggested resurrecting the podcast a few months ago to make the most of what, for me, has always been the best part of Mostly Comedy: the fascinating people it brings us into contact with. Why waste that opportunity by restricting it to a one-off gig in a room, when you can get something out of it that lasts beyond that date? (Don't respond.) Tony Hawks is undoubtedly such a person. I've been a fan of his books ever since my friend Ash recommended 'Round Ireland with a Fridge' to me while I gave him guitar lessons in the early 2000s. I instantly fell in love with To...

My ongoing mission to tie up loose ends saw me recently edit the final episode of More Than Mostly Comedy (recorded at the last Hitchin Mostly Comedy on 9th December 2021) and my share of the edit of our most recent instalment of The McCartney McAlphabet . Both are available wherever you pick up your podcasts (you lucky thing, you). I'm now in the unusual position of all my editing being up to date, which is a rare treat. In the case of More Than Mostly Comedy, I purposely saved it until I felt ready to look at it and for a time when the stresses of the Fringe had passed. I knew it would be bittersweet because of the circumstances. Unsurprisingly, I didn't want to spend much time wallowing in the last remaining link to something that had been so central to my life for fourteen years. The thought of being confronted by audio from a show that wasn't supposed to be our last was daunting. Both my partnership with Glyn and Mostly Comedy were things I'd fiercely protected, a...

As of today, I've been a professional actor and musician for twenty years. Allegedly.  Doesn't working in the same field for two decades technically constitute a career? If so, I look forward to the sense of security kicking in, both psychologically and financially. However, I know I should at least give myself a pat on the back for managing to stay in an industry so notorious for people dropping out. To still be acting twenty years after my showcase at London's Fortune Theatre is not to be sniffed at, whatever my bank balance/sinus issues say to the contrary. All in all, I haven't done too bad. My first two jobs - both No. 1 tours for Bill Kenwright - set a high bar in terms of the scale of theatre I was playing and the work I was doing. Being a musician definitely increased my opportunities in the early days, though I risked being typecast in a genre I was determined to not get stuck in. However, it gave me some great opportunities of which playing my heroes Paul McCa...

And so Mostly Comedy has closed. Our closure statement (26.04.2022). Arriving at this decision was difficult. It went against my natural-born instinct to keep things going at all costs. My brain has an annoying habit of defining what I do on the times when it isn't plain sailing at the exclusion of any evidence to the contrary, and this was no exception. But the fact is the circumstances we found ourselves in thanks to the pandemic were unprecedented and extremely hard to fight, particularly when you have so little money to start with and are constantly calling in favours from friends to make the shows run smoothly on the day. Pre-show audience at a Hitchin Town Hall Mostly Comedy (June 2019) The sad thing is I had visions of it carrying on long into the future, though if I could find a way to outsource some of the admin, that would've helped. I liked the idea of reaching our twentieth anniversary - we were already close to our fourteenth - as, for some reason, the idea that it...

Part of the reason I've been silent for a while is my attention is so divided. For nearly two years, I've been trying to push through the sale of my flat as it limped along for a variety of reasons, not least the pandemic's impact. Finally, we're potentially a few days from completion, which is hugely significant as it will draw to a close a stressful process that should also help create some closure from the issues it brought up from my past. And both points are sorely needed. Meanwhile, a different type of closure threatens Mostly Comedy. Trying to keep enough money in the kitty to cover our costs as multiple shows are cancelled or postponed for all manner of reasons has proved difficult; if it weren't for a generous donation via JustGiving last month, we would have folded. Frustratingly, sales were picking up for next week's gig when we had to postpone it to May due to a sickness in the line-up (which sounds like the proclamation of an apocalyptic preacher). ...

A month since my last blog about September's Hitchin Mostly Comedy , we've nearly reached the limit of what we can do to keep the club afloat, which is pretty inevitable in the current climate. A video still of Doggett & Ephgrave performing at the first Hitchin Mostly Comedy (23.10.08) The sad thing is sales for October's gig had improved considerably in the week after our first show back. It was probably the simple fact that a gig went ahead after so many cancellations since Covid hit that had reinstilled people's confidence. But seven days later, in classic sod's law style, the faeces hit the air-cooling device. The main act pulled out for a better-paid gig and, because the other comic originally scheduled to appear had sadly passed away, the complete change to our line-up put us in a situation when we'd have to at least offer refunds to ticketholders first. Doggett & Ephgrave interview Phil Cornwell (far left) at the last Hitchin Mostly Comedy (23.09....

My main focus for the past few days has been organising and promoting the on-sale dates for July's proposed return of Hitchin Mostly Comedy (provided the Delta COVID variant doesn't keep us on ice) and editing the second and third episodes of The McCartney McAlphabet. Unsurprisingly, sales for Mostly have been cautious. I suspect they'll pick up once we know the Government's plans for 21st June onwards, but even bearing that in mind, the low take-up is concerning. I worry our seventeen-month closure could play havoc with a momentum we may never get back. And while we're prepared for our return to be a slow build, there's only so much we can juggle low figures when the club's not a cheap thing to run, and one too many loss-leaders will spell closure for us. (What a happy cheery chap I am.) The podcast, however, is lots of fun. Our first two episodes are now up , with number three being edited and four at planning stages. I'm really happy with how the fir...

I attended Katie Coxall's funeral online today and was glad to be a part of it. She died suddenly of cancer on 7th May at just fifty and had such vibrant energy it's hard to process she's gone. Just the loss of her on Twitter is akin to that of a Trump-like silence, only shit. And that's as far as the two can be compared in the same sentence. Katie's tweets had an intelligent bluntness the Great Orange One could only dream of (if a brain that compromised can even dream in the first place). Katie's talent was as vast and keen-eyed as her dark sense of humour. She was a creature of many hats (if creatures wear hats): an inspired illustrator with an instantly recognisable and brilliantly unique style, who was also a fantastic comic poet. Her sets at Mostly Comedy as mushybees back in the day were tear-streamingly funny. An audience member would hold a large pad aloft and turn the pages at her instruction to reveal a macabre illustration of a celebrity to which Kati...

I'm struggling to motivate myself at the moment and don't know where to put my energy next. My enthusiasm for the projects I usually depend on for a sense of forward motion has vanished (ironically along with the projects themselves), partly because I'm tired of often being alone in the driving seat. Mostly Comedy's still closed due to the pandemic and looks unlikely to reopen before the Autumn, if that. I could do with booking more interviewees so we can resume the podcast, but I'm fast running out of ideas for good people to do it, and don't know why I invest so much time on something that makes so little money and wouldn't happen if I didn't put so much energy into it. I know Glyn enjoys doing it when we do it, but being honest, I don't think he'd miss it that much if we didn't either. And after so many years being the catalyst, I long for someone to match me and occasionally take the mantle when I'm not at my best. I feel like I'm...

Pulling together a couple of composite images to summarise Mostly Comedy 's 2020 act roll-call - as I do every year - served to underline what a great bunch of people have either appeared at the club or guested on our podcast since January. Stills, taken from some of our Zoom-based More Than Mostly Comedy Podcast interviews this year. ...plus a few more. Of course, the year was nothing like we'd planned, with just two proper live dates in January & February thanks to COVID-19, but at least we managed to make a virtue of adversity by dipping more heavily into the podcast than usual, with ten new episodes already released and another three waiting to be edited; that's far more than we would have done had the club been open, so that's good. And even if we'd gone ahead with the onstage interviews we'd intended to do at the club this year, it's unlikely we'd have had such an impressive roster of guests; that's the advantage of being interviewing peop...

Tonight's Mostly Comedy saw the club sink just that little bit more comfortably into its new home of Hitchin Town Hall with a suitably busy gig (with just over 200 attending) and a suitably big name to close in the form of Reginald D Hunter. Reginald D Hunter at Hitchin Mostly Comedy (19.09.19) The point hammered home was how nice everyone at the Town Hall is and how easy setup is compared to all our other bases. We're still getting used to not having to do as much as previously, but it's a lovely problem to have, particularly when our time together's so tight; I arrived a little before Glyn at 4:30pm and we were still long done by about 6:45pm, which was unheard of back-in-the-day; I even had time to get changed and eat, which was a bonus. The show itself went well too. Both Lynn Ruth Miller and Reginald D Hunter were great and charming in their inimitable way and the audience reaction was fantastic. Admittedly, the gig loses intimacy in a room this size, but s...

Press releases are a means to an end (that end being, "to hope to draw an audience"). There's no guarantee this will work, but when you're hosting an act like Reginald D Hunter, you'd expect to get a fair amount of interest. See below for the press release for our next Hitchin show a fortnight today, then book: Doggett, D Hunter and Ephgrave, backstage at a one-off Mostly Comedy at Royal Airforce Museum London. Press Release – 05.09.19 mostly comedy a monthly comedy club at hitchin town hall The duo behind Hitchin’s successful long-running club Mostly Comedy, DOGGETT & EPHGRAVE , kick off their Autumn 2019 season on 19th September at their new home Hitchin Town Hall in the company of TV favourite, REGINALD D HUNTER. Reg is one of the comedy scene’s best-known performers and is a regular on such primetime shows as Have I Got News For You, QI, 8 Out Of 10 Cats and Live at The Apollo. He was born in Albany in Georgia in 1969 and initia...

Today, I managed to cross another work-related chore off the list by completing and ordering the artwork for my Bath Comedy Festival dates next month. Now, at least the route's a little clearer before the two shows take place. Being honest, I've had next-to-no time to write anything new yet what with my dad's situation and all, so it's likely to be a bit of a mish-mash of old tried and tested stuff, but at least it's a nice gentle warm-up into gigging solo once again. Then by the time I get to Brighton, I'm hopeful I'll have a few fresh ideas to throw into the midst. We also had the pre-sale for Tony Slattery's appearance at Mostly Comedy today, which is selling healthily, particularly when you consider it was only announced at the end of last week. I'm looking forward to having him at the club as he's someone I've always liked, and it's always nice to play host to interesting new people.