mostly david ephgrave

Over the past week my beard has crept back onto my face. This makes it sound like a separate entity; a hairy beast that skulks around my flat and crawls up my body when I’m sleeping, returning to its rightful place. It’s worth clarifying that my beard doesn’t have a mind of its own – but it has grown back despite my best intentions. For almost as long as I could manage it, I’ve had facial hair. I’m not talking about my eyebrows – they’re a given – but a variety of supplementary adornments, grown according to my personal taste. My love of music certainly played a part: I used to wish I was a child of the Sixties – and if I couldn’t make that dream a reality, I could make myself look the part at the very least. I used to sport a massive pair of muttonchops, that got abuse and praise in equal measure. People would speed past me in their cars, shouting “SIDBURNS” out of the window – as if I was unaware I had them and needed some kind of verbal warning. At drama sc...