mostly david ephgrave

For the past few days, I’ve been enjoying listening to one of Paul McCartney’s least well-regarded albums, Pipes of Peace . To give you an idea of how little it’s liked, even the majority of fans on his official forum - who you'd think would have a more red-rose-speedway-tinted view toward his work - find it hard to say a good thing about it. When it was announced that it would be remastered and re-released as the next instalment of his current reissue series (alongside the critically acclaimed Tug of War), the news was met with derision on the Macca Message Board (though you should never listen to people on the Internet. Especially bloggers; they’re the worst). Even I, a full-time ‘McC advocate ’, pulled a face when I heard about it - and questioned why he’d choose it over everything else. Not that I haven’t given the album a fair chance in the past. Every so often, I return to the oft-neglected or derided parts of his back catalogue (in a loose sense, I'm referri...

In 2007, Doggett & Ephgrave briefly reinvented ourselves as the fictional experimental pop duo, Troy Matthews & Portakabin: Portakabin were destined to only appear in two sketches; one featuring the Tory MP Peter Lilley , and another, better one, above. There was little to it, save us miming / dancing to an amusing piece of music whilst wearing a pair of uncomfortably tight roll-necks that belonged to Glyn’s mum, but it made for a popular diversion, when slipped into the midst of a mixed-bill line-up. We rolled the second sketch out countless times between 2007-2009, mostly to success. It was the glue between the two sitcom pilots we stitched together to make our 2007 Etcetera Theatre show ‘Two’s Company…' , as well as featuring in our sketch show ‘Comedy Job Lot’ , performed at both the Etcetera and Soho Theatre in 2009. We’d also did it at the odd London sketch night and local music gig – and most memorably of all, at Edinburgh’s infamous late-night ...