mostly david ephgrave

In typical me-style, I had to rerecord a jingle from scratch that I wrote today to put into my show when the file decided to corrupt at the last minute, after having worked on it for a couple of hours. To be honest, the end result actually came out better after remaking it and it didn’t take as long to do, but it was frustrating when all I wanted was to relax for my penultimate evening at home before I bugger off to Scotland. It was one of those classic ‘should have saved it earlier’ situations, but it worked out all right in the end, so I don’t have much to complain about. There’ll be a lot to fit in tomorrow before I go, inevitably, but hopefully it won’t be too stressful a day. I treated myself to a couple of new suitcases today; I’ve been using the same one for touring since I first did Buddy back in 2005, so I think it was time for an upgrade. I also renewed my railcard that was conveniently set to run out tomorrow and sent a few Edinburgh-rel...

Spare a thought for the producer who dreamt of working on a multi-platinum album, yet records the page-turning sound for an e-paper instead. Surely no-one sets out to be responsible for that, yet someone has to do it. It’s like the people who photograph food for menus or zoom in on the winning lottery numbers when they come out of Guinevere; they provide a service of reasonable value that isn't something to aspire to. It must be hard to work on something so utterly mundane. My ex-flatmate had a couple of jobs when we lived together that served a financial purpose, but were amusing in their dullness; something we both used to joke about. The Top Three were: 3) Packing mushrooms (he's allergic to them). 2) Stacking toilets. 1) Ironing snooker tables. The top job was by definition the best. It was a door-to-door service, which meant driving from pool hall to pool hall, asking if they needed anything doing. I hope it was...

By the end of last night’s radio recording, I was a bit delirious. This was due to tiredness, brought on by taking on too much at once.  It didn’t help that the night before, I barely slept. Instead, I lay in bed, counting off the hours I could have been unconscious, like a Jim Bowen-esque Mr Sandman was showing me what I could have won.   That simile shows my condition hasn’t improved, but I’m going to roll with it. I’ll be intrigued to hear the show back when it airs on Sunday. I hope my exhaustion isn’t obvious. Things started well, but by an hour in, my concentration was shot. I started questioning whether I was missing key words out of sentences as I spoke. Even now, I’m struggling to make a coherent point; it's very irritating. I need a quiet weekend to recharge my batteries. Hopefully then I’ll be back to my usual self (whatever that is). Until then, I think I’ll outsource my blogposts; is there such a t...

I’ve spent the afternoon editing together an audio clip of me performing stand-up, to send off to a comedy competition. This was a useful exercise, considering my recent doubts about my ability. In doing it, I was forced to watch a number of videos of my gigs, to work out what to send. While some of it made me cringe, a lot didn’t – and what shocked me most was there were laughs . ...quite a lot of them, in fact. Far more than I remembered. For some reason (*cough* Chortle review *cough*) I’ve convinced myself that there weren’t. It’s surprising how much you can reinvent something in your head, from a distance. That’s why recording my stand-up sets can be invaluable. It gives me the chance to experience them from the outside looking in, rather than the inside looking out. One thing I noticed was that the bits that came across the best had more attack. This was probably because they were in a club - and not a show – setting. It made me think that I’ve have been sitting ba...

Tonight we did our last semi-secret pre-record of next Sunday’s In Your Inner Ear . All canned up. It was fun, despite us both suffering from post-Mostly Comedy fatigue. We were exhausted. We were also held up by technical gremlins that meant we didn’t start the recording until 10pm; not the best time to get your brain into gear for a two-hour show, particularly when you didn’t get to bed until 3am the night before. Show notes. The topic for tonight’s show was ‘jobs’. This gave us ample opportunity to recall various anecdotes about our lives on tour. Steve was with us too, sharing tales from a more ‘real world’ perspective, though in reality, his day-to-day life is just as strange as ours. We rounded things off with a Shakespearian acting competition, with us each delivering a speech from King Lear to a dramatic musical backdrop and Steve’s judgement. I won’t tell you who won, as remembering the outcome will only piss me off.  Ever the professionals. I...

We prerecorded another episode of our radio show tonight. It was an enjoyable recording. We’re starting to get into the swing of things and relax into what we’re doing. The show is taking less time to plan, and, while we have to work hard for the two hours we’re broadcasting / recording and keep thinking on our feet, it’s satisfying to get to the other end of it. It’s good that it’s self-contained; once a recording or a broadcasting is finished, the show is done and dusted and we can move onto the next thing. We’re prerecording a few here and there over the next month, which isn’t a bad thing. It gives us time to settle in. The downside is we're having to plan a lot of shows at once. By the time our little off / on stint of prerecording is done with, we should be able to sit back a bit. I’m looking forward to this. The theme of tonight’s show was ‘digs’: i.e. the various ridiculous places we’ve stayed whilst touring. Many of these stories could make up blogs in and ...

Today Glyn and I went to the recording of one of the episodes of Reeves & Mortimer’s new sitcom, House of Fools, at Elstree Studios. Despite having been involved in countless sitcom read-throughs, neither of us had been present at a recording, either as punters of performers; sadly nothing we’ve been a part of has ever been snapped up (we weren’t the deciding factor). As a result, today was an interesting experience – though frustrating; neither of us are good at being in the audience. It’s not the first time I’ve seen Vic & Bob in the flesh; back in 1998 they performed a stage version of Shooting Stars as part of a double-bill with The Fast Show at the Hammersmith Apollo, which I went to with my friend Chris. I remember thinking Shooting Stars didn’t work so well in that environment, without the benefit of an edit to tighten it up – but it was still exciting to see the duo in person. I’ve just realised that was fifteen years ago. CHRIST. The downside of atten...