mostly david ephgrave

My mood has been affected today by the sad news that Paul Daniels isn't well. He’s a hero of mine and one of the biggest influences in my choice of career. I may not have ended up a magician, but my fascination with magic enabled me to take my first steps toward being a performer, taking in music, acting and comedy along the way. I was obsessed with him as a child, and would tune into his magic show every week. Then, last November, he performed at Glyn’s and my comedy club; stepping from childhood fantasy into reality, shaking my hand as I welcomed him on stage. Everything about the gig was perfect; Paul and Debbie were charming, both on-stage and off. Before he went on, he asked me to set his props, which felt like a privilege. His performance was a master-class from someone who was still as sharp as a pin and at the top of his game. Everyone watching knew it; people fought to sit at the front or be pulled up on stage. It was a wonderful, unforgettabl...

I’ve just finished editing episode twenty-one of the More Than Mostly Comedy Podcast; or, to borrow the parlance of the sitcom Friends, ‘The One with Paul & Debbie’. Listening to it reminded me of how lucky we are to interview the people we do. The conversation with Daniels and McGee takes up a sizable portion of the podcast - a good thirty to forty minutes – and covers a lot of ground. It was a privilege to talk to them in such detail, bringing up subjects and asking questions that have been on our minds for years. I, for example, was able to tell Paul about visiting Television Centre as a child to watch him film an episode of Wipeout, and share an anecdotal joke about it that made him laugh. If you’d told the younger version of me that I'd get the chance to do that, I would never have believed it. In many ways, the podcast is the best and most useful part of Mostly Comedy. It gives us the chance to have a proper chat with the acts, briefl...

Tonight’s Mostly Comedy was one of the most surreal and exciting gigs of my life. Paul Daniels at tonight's Hitchin Mostly Comedy (photos by Gemma Poole ). I never dreamt I’d share a bill with my childhood hero Paul Daniels; least of all at my own event. I never thought I’d make him a cup of tea ( milk and sugar), share a laugh backstage with the genuinely lovely Debbie McGee – and get to interview them with my equally ecstatic double-act partner, and then watch Paul perform a trick just for our benefit. The evening was packed with pinch-yourself moments; so much so, the ten-year-old inside me didn’t know what to do with himself. Paul Daniels and Debbie McGee onstage at Hitchin Mostly Comedy (19.11.15) We’ve played host to a lot of big names at Mostly Comedy, but somehow, PD trumped them all. The atmosphere in the room when he was onstage was electric; the roar from the audience when he let a “Not a lot” slip towards the end of his set nearly took the roof...

Today was completely overshadowed by booking Glyn’s and my childhood hero Paul Daniels for November’s Hitchin Mostly Comedy. So was yesterday, to a certain extent. It was from then that we knew he might say yes (Paul). I was on tenterhooks until noon today, waiting for the confirmation email. When it came through, I didn’t know what to do with myself (other than text Glyn so we could share our excitement). It was genuinely thrilling – and a solid reminder of how much Mostly Comedy has grown since it started in 2008. Paul Daniels was one of the main reasons I decided to become a performer. That’s no exaggeration. Before I set my sights on being an actor, comedian or musician, I wanted to be a magician. I was obsessed with conjuring as a child, snapping up every book or trick I could find. While my junior school friends were busy wrestling with their Rubik’s Cubes, swapping Garbage Pail Kids cards or attempting to create some semblance of a discernib...

Even though it happened twenty years ago, I still vividly remember the time my parents said the Wings song Magneto & Titanium Man was shit. (Not their exact wording, but the sentiment.) We were speeding down the A1 on our way back from Weymouth, returning from a holiday I’d won in a talent show. I was obsessed with magic as a child, and would carry a few tricks with me whenever we went away. I'd entered the first heat of the competition on a whim, while on another family break to the Isle of Wight. It only took a coin trick, a rope trick and a quick burst of the linking rings to secure a place in the final in Weymouth, where I sank without a trace. So I wasn’t in the best mood in the car to start with. My parents let me choose the soundtrack for the journey home, to keep my spirits up. I handed my mum a C60 of Venus & Mars that I’d taped from the LP (I had eclectic tastes for a child of the 80s). We were just five songs into side A when the atm...