mostly david ephgrave

One song that will always send me speeding back to my childhood is The Age of Not Believing from Bedknobs and Broomsticks. I loved that film as a kid. I really did. My VHS copy was worn out from constant use. I got so used to watching that tired old tape that when the film was broadcast on TV a few years back, I expected the picture to be warped at the top of the screen. Sometimes, I'm an idiot. I used to know the script inside out. I was the same with the soundtrack. I’d inherited a copy of the LP from my mum’s friend Vivienne, which was often on the turntable of the record player in my dining room. I’d mime along to it when no-one was about; pretending I was David Tomlinson, extolling the virtues of underwater life to Angela Lansbury while surrounded by a school of animated fish. I’d watch my performance throughout in the reflection in the glass door of my mum's display cabinet. It’s no wonder I ended up as a professional show-off with a childhood like thi...

Last night I watched Blithe Spirit at the Gielgud Theatre, with Angela Lansbury. I didn’t go with Dame Angela; she was in it. The train into London was full of people going to the Arctic Monkeys gig at Finsbury Park. I was off to watch the star of Murder, She Wrote. The culture divide was massive. I’d wanted to go to show from the moment I’d seen it advertised. I’m a big fan of the play and its leading actress. Neither disappointed. Both have aged well. Lansbury was hilarious, with an energy that belies her age; there aren’t many eighty-eight-year-olds who could cope with eight shows a week, let alone attack them with such panache. Her CV is incredible. She’s won five Tonys and six Golden Globes and been nominated for eighteen Emmys and three Oscars. It puts my Most Promising Student award to shame. She made her Broadway debut in 1957 and is still going strong. I made my first professional theatre appearance in 2002 and am already contempl...