Skip to main content

"Bye Bye, Mostly David Ephgrave, Mostly David Ephgrave, Bye Bye."


Tonight, I ‘Mostly David Ephgraved’ for the final time at the Leicester Comedy Festival, at the lovely Lightbox venue at Grays@LCB Depot. 

Me, being aggressive at tonight's show.
This was my third visit to the festival, but my first time on my own. Every year I came with Glyn (and tonight as well) I had a great time; something about the way the festival works - with most comics only doing one show - means the competition is evenly spread, so nearly everyone gets the luxury of an audience. When I arrived at the venue tonight, the guy who ran it apologised for the lack of punters (saying how much busier it had been for the rest of the festival), but when it came to it, he needn’t have worried; a few minutes before 8pm, lo and behold, a load of people arrived, which was great as comedy works best with an audience.

The gig was fun one. I was conscious of the heat and the fact people began to look a little tired towards the end, but it zipped by at a lick, with enough off-the-cuff bits to keep things interesting. It was a good way to give the show a final send-off. It helped that the space was comfortable for both the audience and me. It had good sound and a good tech set-up, including a rigged projector that threw a huge image (is this the correct terminology?); it’s great when the pictures are big as it makes the finickity details a lot funnier.

After the show, my wife and I went for a ridiculously lovely meal at a Wagamama, which was a good way to round the evening off; a night that happens to be our twelfth anniversary; what better way is there to spend such an occasion than driving to Leicester to spend the night in a Travelodge? Being with me is like living the dream. 


Popular posts from this blog

Not The Bayeux One.

The Carole King album Tapestry has been my 'getting-ready-in-the-morning' soundtrack for the past few weeks.  It's been a favourite album ever since I was a student, which makes for a pleasantly gentle way to usher in the start of a day. I've always been a fan of a well-crafted song, which is something of a Carole King hallmark, ever since she started writing with her first husband in the early Sixties. Tapestry may be an unimaginative choice for a favourite LP, as it suggests I haven't delved that far into her career, but it's still an undoubted classic; anything with '(You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman', 'Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?' and 'You've Got A Friend' on it can't really fail; if nothing else, it proves she likes writing songs with long titles.  Next month, she's set to perform the album live in its entirety for the first time at a gig in Hyde Park, which I would have loved to have gone to, if it weren...

Shakerpuppetmaker.

Have Parker from Thunderbirds and Noel Gallagher ever been seen in the same room? The resemblance is uncanny. So much so, I think something’s afoot. If my suspicions are correct, I've stumbled across a secret that will blow the music and puppet industry wide apart. In the mid-60s / mid-90s at least. It doesn’t take long to see the signposts. There’s the similarity between the name of Oasis’ first single, Supersonic, and Supermarianation, Gerry Anderson’s puppetry technique. The Gallagher brothers would often wear Parkas . Live Forever was clearly a reference to Captain Scarlet and Standing on the Shoulder of Giants to the size difference between Noel and his bandmates. The more you think about it, the more brazen it gets. It’s fishier than Area 51, Paul is Dead and JFK's assassination put together. The only glitch to the theory is scale . According to Wikipedia, Anderson’s marionettes were 1’10” and Gallagher is 5’8”. How does he maintain an illusion of avera...

'...I'm Gonna Look at You 'til My Eyes Go Blind."

Over the past week or two, I’ve been on a bit of a Sheryl Crow kick, largely thanks to rediscovering her cover of one of my most-liked Bob Dylan songs. She has one of my favourite female voices, yet despite this, I only own one CD and that’s just a single (her '97 release ‘Hard to Make a Stand’); on that basis, you can only imagine how much of her back catalogue I’d own if I hated her (it would fall into minus-figures). Dylan, conversely, takes up more of my collection than anyone else, save The Beatles and Paul McCartney’s solo work. He’s one of those artists who, when you get him, you really get him - and once I’d tuned into his style as a student, I'd time and again be blown away by his lyrics; he’ll have more jaw-dropping imagery in one track than other people fit in a whole career. These days, I mostly listen to music in the morning when getting ready, and more often than not, this will consist of a suggested YouTube playlist when I’m in the bath, r...