mostly david ephgrave

I was deeply shocked to hear of Sean Hughes’ passing yesterday.  Sean Hughes performing at Hitchin Mostly Comedy at The Market Theatre (11.12.14) Richard Herring described his death as “a punch in the soul”, which hit the nail on the head for me. He was an extraordinary comic force who could hold a room in the palm of his hand and take control of it completely, with a fire and depth that belied his laconism. He was the definition of versatility, who could act, do stand-up, write novels and poetry. He was also just 51, which is no age to go, least of all for someone with his energy; it’s hard to believe the source of such wit is no longer with us. The strange thing was I only spoke to him via email a week ago to arrange his next appearance at Mostly Comedy, which would have been in January. The conversation was brief, but it made the news even harder to grasp. I then had the macabre task of removing him from our listings, which had a grim ...

Tonight saw the last Hitchin Mostly Comedy of 2016, which all in all, was a good way to round things off. Me, tonight. We’ve come to the end of our first year at the Sun Hotel, and I now think it’s safe to say our move to the venue has been a success. While the Market Theatre was a lovely space to play and certainly enabled the club to grow, the move to The Sun was the best thing that could happen for us. It enabled us to increase capacity by just enough to make a real difference to how the event runs financially, giving us more of a budget to book bigger acts. The move also relinquished us from the responsibility of having to staff the entire theatre for the night - including the two bars and Front of House - which was a drain on both our finances and our time. Now, we can just concentrate on our tech and door staff, which is of more direct benefit to us - particularly when the theatre wasn't always that accommodating in the first place. Sean...

Tonight we waved goodbye to Mostly Comedy’s Hitchin venue for the last three years and two months, The Market Theatre, at our final show of 2015, with Sean Hughes and Katharine Ferns. Occasions like these are bittersweet. The theatre is close to both Glyn’s and my heart; not least because it’s where we met, working front of house and doing lights and sound, back in 1999. If you’d told us then that we’d (1) form a double act and (2) run a comedy club in the studio we’d spend most of our time hoovering, we would have laughed in your face, then asked you to unplug the hoover from the wall so we could retract the lead without walking across the room first. While it’s a shame to leave a great performance space, the fact the event has grown so much since we’ve been there has made the move inevitable. More frequently than not, we’ve turned people away due to being sold out, which is ultimately a great position for the club to be in. It’s also the fourth time Mostly has moved sin...

I’m really enjoying the process of recording our More Than Mostly Comedy Podcasts. One of the downsides of running your own night is you spend so much time concerned with admin that you seldom have the chance to chat properly with the other acts. From the moment you arrive your attention is split between trying to appease the staff and the audience; dealing with technical problems and customer queries – worrying about whether performers will arrive, and constantly keeping one eye on the time so the show doesn’t overrun, leaving them stranded in Hitchin before the last train. It becomes an exercise in multi-tasking, with so much emphasis placed on what goes on behind the scenes that little or no time is spent thinking about your own material, or talking to the rest of the line-up. A couple of years ago, while we were still at The Croft, we had the idea to record our own podcast. We thought that if we made a point of interviewing every act, w...

Last night I had less than four hours sleep. Doesn't matter; I'm still buzzing. This is partially due to the two large black coffees that have already filtered their way past my oesophagus (not an enjoyable word to spell after a late night, nor a pleasing mental image). T he main reason for this morning's heightened sense of excitement , however, is that I’m still riding on the coattails of last night’s Mostly Comedy.  For those of you who are not in the know, Mostly Comedy is the monthly comedy & music club I run with my comedy partner, Glyn Doggett (no affection). We set it up on a whim, after taking our first show to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2008. It was called ‘The Balloon Debate’; a comedy three-hander set 2000 feet above East Anglia in the basket of a hot-air balloon (a basket we had to set-up and strike in less than seven minutes every night; such is the quick turn-around at the Festival).   ‘The Balloon Debate’ was Dogge...