mostly david ephgrave

I was surprised and amused to discover one of the three jokes I make a point about being the only gags I’ve ever written at the top of my show made it into the i Newspaper’s 50 Best Jokes at this year’s Fringe; what with my line about Anne Boleyn getting into last year’s Telegraph and Comedy Central rundowns, I’ve now got just one joke left to feature somewhere notable to achieve a 100% success rate. I don't get it. Joking aside (no pun intended), it was a relief to have something like this happen, as prior to it, I only had a single disappointing review to speak of as the sum total of this year’s coverage - save a couple of Q&A interviews - and I didn’t want that to be the legacy of what’s otherwise felt like a successful run, at least regarding show content; while it wouldn't be the first time, it’s frustrating when you only have an unrepresentative write-up as the online legacy of your run. It’s funny to be included in another Bes...

I’ve spent much of the evening compiling one-liners from my Edinburgh show to be submitted to the press for consideration for their 2018 best jokes’ lists. I feel a twinge of pressure, as I was lucky enough to feature in couple of these lists last year. It was completely unexpected, so in that sense, it’s probably best to remember I had no inkling anything I’d put forward might stand out; it was just a luck-of-the-draw thing. To frame it more positively, the fact it even happened meant I must have been doing something right, so I can only approach it the same way this year and leave it to chance; it’s not like it means anything anyway: it’s all arbitrary. Finding jokes in my material is a bit of a struggle anyway, as it’s not really how I write. The only place you’re liable to see a one-liner from me is on Twitter and that’s solely due to the episodic nature of it; on stage, I’m more likely to tell a story - or share something visual - than do a gag; jokes have never been to my t...

For someone who professes to be in comedy, I’ve only written three jokes in my life. That’s not an impressive statistic. I should up my game. My current gag productivity averages out at one every eleven years of my life. I’ll be long dead before I’ve built up enough to fill a joke book. I’ll be lucky to work up a pamphlet. I’m just not a set-up-and-punchline person. It’s all right occasionally, but isn’t really to my taste. I prefer comedy based around a situation or an observation to simple wordplay. That's why I’m a big fan of Hancock’s Half Hour. While there’s plenty of funny dialogue, it’s mostly character-driven. The roles of Tony and Sid are so well defined that the humour comes from knowing how they think. The same applies to stand-up. I prefer the storytelling of, say, Phil Kay, to the scattergun one-liners of Tim Vine. Knob gags are my only weakness. That said, a simple joke does have its place. Here are three Ephgrave originals. Two of them I quite like. ...

There is no quicker way to weaken a jokey statement than using an exclamation mark! See, I told you. For me, exclamation marks are akin to wearing a novelty tie or t-shirt; seldom justified and the 'joke' wears thin almost as soon as it's started. It's not that they don't have their place (if I was trapped down a mineshaft I'd probably use one) - but that place isn't at the end of an amusing sentence.   Doing this usually suggests you’ve lost faith in your own sense of humour, and have tacked on some rogue punctuation last-minute to hammer the point home ; “Look, Mum. I’M BEING FUNNY ”. You might as well have attached an MP3 of a swanee whistle, or a short GIF of you shrugging at the camera. (I know all my computer terminology.) If Michael McIntyre was a punctuation point he’d be an exclamation mark: a big, fat one in Comic Sans.   Sometimes, if I’m writing a text or an email to someone who doesn’t know me very well, then th...