mostly david ephgrave

I had to cancel today’s show despite having a good turnout (for me), for the simple reason I couldn’t hear a bloody thing. The cause was both dull and grim in equal measure: I occasionally have too much earwax for my own good, which is related to my whole vertigo situation, which at its worst will block my ear canal so much that no sound can get in (or out, should it need to); this is particularly the case when I’m rundown, which I clearly am at the moment. I had a similar problem before a show last year too, although it cleared itself just at the right moment; I had my fingers crossed that the same would happen today, but no such luck. I’d gone so far as to walk behind the curtain ready to make my entrance, but had been struggling so much to hear while chatting with my technician Robert just before - who’ll probably spot his name when this blog post briefly pops up on the screen at the end of my show tomorrow, so HI ROBERT - that I got into a bit of a pa...

It's fair to say today peaked before 10am for me.   For the past few months I’ve put up with fluctuating hearing in my right ear; it started towards the end of my run in Edinburgh in August and reached its worst during the week of September’s Mostly Comedy, when Old Rightie decided to completely shut up shop. The night of the gig was horrible, as I was performing in a vacuum with my voice placed front-centre and the audience barely audible at all (for once this wasn’t due to my material). My set went well, but it was an awful experience for me, as it threw my timing completely off-kilter; it’s very hard to deliver jokes when you’ve no idea whether you’re pitching things normally or if anyone’s even laughing. A few days prior to the gig, I visited my GP, who prescribed me a course of olive oil (like I salad being dressed with vinaigrette.) I was told to use a pipette to squeeze four drops of the oil in my ear four times a day, to s...