mostly david ephgrave

I'm at a bit of a loss over what to do next, due to the lost momentum in my work-life and the emotional difficulties of my current situation. The cancellation of Edinburgh was nigh-on unavoidable, but while going ahead was already on a knife-edge because of my dad's death, the removal of the project I'd kept at least one eye on throughout the latter stages of his illness took away the opportunity to deflect some of the pain with work; doing it was something he was very much behind too, so taking it out of the diary was an extra wrench. I also pulled out to give myself time to rebuild, following the stress of my dad's deterioration, although the month that followed offered little opportunity. I have moments when I honestly don't know how to deal with what's being thrown my way. A disagreement over the principle behind what my dad didn't know when he wrote his Will looks set to drone on indefinitely, with the other party unwilling to acknowledge event...

Tonight’s Mostly Comedy had a very special headliner - true to form - in Simon Day and was a great gig all in all, though the last few hours before the show were a little frenetic, so we went into it pretty stressed. June's Hitchin Mostly Comedy line-up: (clockwise from top) Simon Day, Spring Day and Lorna Shaw. If there’s one thing I could eliminate from the whole Mostly Comedy experience it would be the tendency for a race-to-the-finish (or more accurately, a race to the start) with no backstage to disappear to to get your head together for it; just a dressing room would do, rather than slipping into the gents’ (which has the world’s slowest closing outer door) feeling sweaty and low status, hoping you won't first meet meet the main act when they burst in on you in your underwear. Running the club means constantly switching hats, much like that old, chaotic Tommy Cooper sketch, and the lack of a proper backstage area is often the ...

Today’s show was another fun one, which was just what I needed after arriving at the venue this morning feeling very tired and lacking in energy. It started a little awkwardly, with just three people in who were all sat on one side of the room, leading to me christening the performance early on as the Crick in the Neck Experience, before another couple snuck in a few minutes into the show and sat on the other side, thus giving my eye-line a greater sense of balance; no need to call a chiropractor just yet. Without wishing to tempt fate so early on into the game, I’m really enjoying the show at the moment; I’m happier with it than I was with last year’s at this stage and I think the content’s stronger. I’m using the projector more and I think there’s a little more variety to it, what with the songs and the like. One thing I did like was last year’s ending, which tied a lot of the material together; while this year’s ending’s simpler, it's okay t...

Today I sent the following email to few friends and people I know in the industry: …and the first response I received was this, from a fellow comic: Don’t you just love humanity? I actually wasn’t contacting them in their unnecessarily overstated capacity as a promoter, but as a fellow human being - and one who knows what it's like to try to pull together an audience. I didn’t break any rules and wasn’t pestering or being pushy; I’d just dropped them a line in the hope they'd show interest; they were the ones being unprofessional by being so blunt. It’s disheartening when you try to generate interest in what you do to feel like you’re shouting into silence. It’s not like I’m giving it the hard-sell. it can be difficult to keep faith in the worth of my work at the best of times, without being hit by such unpleasantness; I wouldn’t speak to anyone like that, however right I thought I might be; if my email was that ann...

Today's show felt a bit like giving everyone a window into my madness.  It was a fun one, if a little unhinged. It didn't help that I sweated more than a healthy man should ever have need to sweat. I was like a mix between the Mary Rose and a water feature (both being analogies I made reference to during the gig). My cold didn't help, as it forced me to work harder, and made me out of breath. If nothing else, I felt healthier afterwards having perspired most of my illness from my system; probably at the expense of my audience, who probably picked my cold up by the time the show was out.  What was lovely about today's gig was I had a couple of comedian friends in, who were clearly on-side. You always feel pressured in these instances, but their laughter put me at ease, even if I knew the amount of water dripping from me made me look like a Gollum gone to seed.  The rest of the day was spent with Glyn, filling him in on the various highs and lows of the run to date. It...

My wife said some words of wisdom to me before I left for yesterday's gig (and they weren't "Let it be").  I told her which material I was planning to do as I said goodbye and asked, " Will that be all right?", to which she said, " Tell them it's all right".  (I'm married to Yoda.)  That's stand-up in a nutshell. There shouldn't be doubt. I'm in control of my stories; I own them. So why apologise for what I tell?  It's amazing how easy it is to forget the essentials. I've spend a heck of a lot of my life on stage, as an actor, a musician and a comic. I've played nearly every major theatre in the country, and most of the minor ones too. I've even been in a West End musical, which considering my distaste for the idiom is frankly ridiculous - so why do I still frequently feel I shouldn't be there? To be fair, it's usually only just before I go on. When I'm performing, it suddenly makes sense, and o...

Tonight I met with Mr Doggett to update our Public Liability Insurance and sign a few forms to register with a new accountant. I plan to so bloody reckless now we’re re-insured. I’ll dress solely in shell suits with my hair lacquered up to-the-max. Never before in the history of mankind will one person have been so inflammable; I’ll be the personification of the cast of Backdraft after a grossly misjudged publicity stunt; call me Wicker Man Ephgrave. ( ...though I've never actually seen it .) The only downside to our policy is it doesn’t protect us from everything you'd think. We’re not covered for any equestrian work conducted by us or someone else on our behalf, nor can we handle muskets, pistols or guns; there goes our proposed Three Musketers remake. We can’t perform at an altitude in excess of three metres without potentially falling financially foul should we injure anyone around us, so our fourth plinth physical theatre installation has been nixed. It offi...