mostly david ephgrave

It wasn’t until I posted a tweet to advertise the next two months’ Mostly Comedy line-ups that I realised the acts appearing were all men. I’m annoyed about this, if I’m honest, as I try hard not to make this the case. There should always be an equal spread of male and female comics, though admittedly, however aware I am of this, sometimes acts’ availabilities mean the line-up I aim for may not be the line-up I get. However good our intentions may be, we ultimately want a bill that will sell, plus we reach a point where we just need a bill confirmed. It’s not that I want to go down the same route the BBC famously – and controversially – went with panel shows, insisting that every show should have at least one woman in the line-up. If anything, this made their male-to-female ratio worse , with them settling for just on e woman per show, instead of an even amount. Also, why make panel shows the scapegoat, when male bias is a problem across the bo...

I was feeling a little forlorn about trying to drum up interest - and an audience - for Wednesday's preview, and all the admin that goes with it, until I received a nice email from someone I'd invited, expressing frustration that they couldn't come.  This might sound like a standard response, if it weren't for the fact that this person -  who shall remain nameless - is of a high enough profile / doesn't know me that well to feel obliged to reply, yet they still did, and were really lovely in the process. They only said a few words, but it was still enough to make me feel more positive about what I was doing; particularly after a challenging day.  Working on your own can feel like a uphill slog. You fluctuate between feeling good about what you're doing and being generally unenthused by it. You have to constantly keep yourself in check, while splitting your time between writing, promoting, rehearsing, improving and keeping faith in what you're doing when fa...