mostly david ephgrave

While yesterday’s day off left me feeling ready to go home when I woke up this morning, today’s show was bolstered by a lovely audience and some unexpected energy bubbling to the surface, which is proof why having a rest day is very necessary. It was a welcome surprise how much better I felt thanks to a day off, as I’d spent yesterday evening feeling pretty ropey and sick, though the triple threat of a ginger beer, ginger tea and a few ginger biscuits seemed to stave off my gippy stomach. I felt particularly reinvigorated during the songs today, thanks to a fractionally rested voice and having more energy to call on; just call me Mr Vigorous. My guitar sounded better too as I changed my strings yesterday for the first time since I got here, so things were janglier all round. To be fair, yesterday wasn’t a complete day off as I got up reasonably early to record an interview for Fringe Festival Support’s daily-filmed podcast at the Pleasance Dome. This was so relaxed it was easy to...

I ended up not doing a show today, which in a perverse way felt like a bit of a treat. I was talking to my technician Michael moments before we opened the house about how the intensity of a run on the Fringe would be easier to withstand with a day off a week. While it’s fair to say I’ve started every day tired for at least a week now, my energy tends to kick into gear once I get to the venue, but today was the first time I needed a fifteen-minute power-nap before leaving my digs, as the results of a month of early starts had finally caught me up. I don’t think anyone is built to withstand so many shows without a break; it doesn’t really happen like this in many other instances outside of Edinburgh - and yet so many of us return year after year, trying to achieve the nearly impossible act of doing a twenty-five-ish day straight, and wonder why we come out the other side shattered and prone to low mood; even the Lord Almighty created the Earth with a...

Yesterday was a day off in name only really, as I had lots to do, but it was cherished nevertheless, what with coming at a time when my energy was starting to wane. It didn’t begin well. It began with pain , when I opened the venetian blind in my bedroom on waking up to have it collapse on my head. Thankfully my cat-like reflexes came to play pretty quickly, with me managing to both move out of the way of its downward trajectory as much as possible while also catching it, which would have looked impressive if anyone had seen it, but I’ll never know if they did as they would have to have been in the building opposite and feel the need to stop me on the street to compliment me on my blind-catching prowess, which is pretty unlikely, but I live in hope. I won’t mince words, by the way: it was fucking heavy. It was also not exactly the gentle warm-up into my only day off that I'd hoped for, not least because it meant I had to get in touch with the ...

Today’s audience was tiny, relatively speaking, with just four in, but they were on board from the beginning - thank God - so the low numbers didn’t matter. Like I said yesterday, the size of an audience doesn’t necessarily correlate with the success of the gig, as some of the smallest crowds can be the most responsive, though this depends on how self conscious that small crowd is; today’s were there to have a good time, fortunately, and kept joining in, which can turn to anarchy if not kept subtly in check, but thankfully it didn’t get too messy, though my diction was a little sloppy due to tiredness. Tomorrow’s my day off, which couldn’t come at more opportune time as I’m starting to feel the strain of the relentlessness of it all; the last few days have seen me wake up later, and today particularly found me struggling to get my brain in gear; I felt shattered while setting up and hoped I wouldn’t have to be on my toes too much for the show, as I...

It was nice to be able to treat myself to a proper day off today, after the success of this weekend’s shows. I didn’t expect the reaction to be so positive so soon, or for the running time of the material to be as comfortably long; that’s not to say that there won’t be big changes before it transforms into what I take to Edinburgh, but it’s heartening to already be at such an encouraging point; at the least, I felt allowed to take a bit of a break from it today, after working so intensely on it for the past week. I’m not really sure what I’ve done with my free time today. This evening was very television led, what with finishing the Mel Brooks’ film Young Frankenstein (which we started watching the day before I went to Bath) and the last episode of Broadchurch. I hadn’t seen the former before, but really enjoyed it; it’s shot beautifully and is full of brilliant comedy performances from every one of the cast. The latter was enjoyable too, even if it almost universally pa...