mostly david ephgrave

Like a lot of people in the UK right now, I’m bored of being so hot. The last few days I’ve hidden away at home as much as possible, as each time I’ve gone out, I’ve quickly regretted it. I always prefer cold weather to warm, as at least you can do more to combat it; when it’s hot, there’s no escape. Unfortunately, I had to go into town today, primary to buy clothes to wear in the artwork for my Edinburgh show, which we’re hopefully taking the photo for tomorrow evening; I didn’t want to leave getting something until tomorrow daytime, in case I struggled to find anything and got unnecessarily stressed in the process. This left a tighter window of opportunity as shops obviously close earlier on Sunday; I had intended to go out as late in the afternoon as possible in the hope it would be cooler then, but the BBC weather app told me it was actually likely to be a better temperature around midday, so I decided to take a risk. One thing I hate a...

Spending £90 on two shirts has put me in a full-scale panic. I went out with the intention of buying something new to wear onstage. I haven’t bought clothes in an aeon and it’s starting to show. I have two shirts I would describe as my best which are in constant rotation. There’s only so many times you can wash and flash-dry the same outfit before it starts to degrade. The contents of my wardrobe could double as an illustration of coastal erosion. I was all set to go somewhere closer to my budget (rhymes with 'text'), when I noticed my favourite - and pricier – clothes shop had a 50% sale. You can’t argue with that. Whether the discount would equal the sale price of an item from my intended destination is up for debate (answer: “no’), but it was worth a look. This is how they lure you in. There were a number of shirts on the rail outside suiting my remit (i.e. “slight hint of wallpaper”). All were at a marked down price. There was n...

Browsing the kids’ section of various charity shops this morning for a costume for the play I'm in made me feel very suspicious. I don’t know why. I could have been a young(ish) parent on the lookout for a new (old) outfit for my child. Even though I wasn’t, I still had a valid excuse - and yet I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was up to something nefarious. It didn’t help that I wasn’t looking for anything specific. Just something small, that would barely fit. It didn’t even matter if it was for a boy or a girl, as long as it made me look ridiculous. I just hadn’t factored in also looking stupid while I bought it. The worst shop of all was the British Heart Foundation. The man behind the counter eyeballed me as I walked around the store. His expression when I finally swooped on the toddlers’ section was priceless. ‘Thought as much’ it said. ‘I bloody thought as much.’ I felt like a man who’s gone into a newsagent to buy porn, then pretends to browse other magazines bef...

I don’t seem to have any smart clothing. When it comes to my wardrobe, I’m a little bit stuck in a rut. I have a handful of shirts and a couple of pairs of jeans in almost constant rotation. I haven’t got to the point where I wear the same outfit on the same day of each week, but it’s getting pretty close. The problem is I have very little money. When I do buy anything new, I’m usually so pleased that I wear it almost constantly; washing it every few days until all that remains is a faded husk of its former glory. The last time I had a large-scale wardrobe rethink was when I was doing Dreamboats & Petticoats in the West End (thud goes the namedrop). I was earning enough then to facilitate a little frivolity. I didn’t buy anything crazy, like a gold lamé jacket – but I did stock up on a couple of nice pairs of shoes and a few natty shirts. (That's right: I did just say 'natty'.) This was now over three years ago...