mostly david ephgrave

Today I was deeply surprised to find out one of my jokes had made it into The Telegraph’s list of 20 Funniest One-liners from the Edinburgh Fringe . STOP PRESS. It’s fair to say I’ve never had this level of coverage for something I’ve written myself, even if it’s just a few words, and it’s a hugely encouraging prelude to my Edinburgh run. I know these lists are arbitrary but there’s still a tiny sense of accreditation about the whole thing, particularly for someone who in his darker, less confident moments questions if he’s even a comedian at all; today, in a small way, a member of the national press said I was, and that’s a small achievement. Why is someone else confirming you’re a thing so important? My problem is I’ve always been a bit of a ‘Jack of all trades’ type, with the secret assumption this makes me a master of none; I’m an actor / musician - which sounds like a compromise - who’s wormed his way into writers’ groups and runs a comedy club by accide...

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. ...