mostly david ephgrave

I'm currently struggling to deal with my feelings about the direction my life is going; partly to do with the coronavirus situation and partly not. The future's always been a difficult concept for me to consider, or believe in. It doesn't help that my circumstances when I was a child hardwired a sense of not being worthy of happiness or good enough. While I've spent years working on being kinder to myself and now understand that the idea that I don't deserve to be happy is irrational, I'm still very hard on myself. I put myself down quickly, and worry that I don't work hard enough or serve a purpose, or provide sufficiently for my family. As a teenager, I couldn't look ahead. I put a time-limit on my life, and while I was very ambitious, I told myself I wouldn't make it past nineteen. It felt like my parents' problems were my fault and mine to fix, and mine were unimportant. At best, I was a creative person - what with my band and my int...

It wasn’t until I posted a Facebook st atus yesterday rounding off my last performance of Mostly David Ephgrave (not to be confused with my blog of the same name) that I realised how many places I’d performed it. This matches closely with my constant assumption that whatever I've done is not enough. For some reason, I easily forget things that offer credence to my work and push examples of what I haven’t achieved to the forefront. I’ve been lucky when it comes to acting and actor / muso work over the years and pretty active with my comedy stuff - both with Glyn and on my own - yet I regularly enter shows thinking I’m not the ‘real deal’ (whatever that is). I’ve written this many times here before, so I won’t over-egg it now, but I often feel like a blagger, and take what others might see (to some degree) as versatility as an example of not being good at just one thing. Whatever the case, seeing the list of places I performed my second solo stand-up show (a...

I’m feeling a slight flush of confidence, having just watched a clip of me trying out some new material at last Thursday’s Mostly. If you think that sounds arrogant, then you don’t know me well. In reality, I’m my own worst critic (however much Steve Bennett would like to steal my crown). Nothing I do is ever good enough. When something goes well, I still manage to find what I perceive to be the least successful aspect, and fixate on it. If I’m in a particularly destructive mood, I’ll sabotage my performance from the inside, by deciding it’s going awfully and making it known. (“Give us a gig.”) The irony is that no-one seems to notice. Even my most disparaging reviews tend to say I look confident. Maybe my lack of faith in my ability is normal and I’m just giving myself a hard time. I don’t know. Whatever it is, I wish I could take on board that I’m not always as bad as I think I am and that, maybe fleetingly, I might occasionally be good. ...