mostly david ephgrave

I was so sad to learn that Tony Phillips passed away earlier this month. Tony was a bit of a local celebrity and was a face you'd always see around Hitchin, whether you knew him or not. He was a longterm friend of Doggett & Ephgrave, who always supported our projects and often lent us a hand as we did to him. And he was a creative powerhouse, forever writing and performing, and always trying something new; he put us (relative) youngsters to shame really. I believe it was 2010 when he took a two-hander about Glenn Miller to the Edinburgh Fringe. Glyn and I were there that year with our first stand-up show 'Big In Small Places', which he was good enough to attend with Hitchin's Town Centre Manager Keith Hoskins in tow. We popped to the Pleasance a few days later to watch his play, which he'd written as well as appearing in it, and we were stuck by how good it was; it still sticks in my mind vividly. It could have toured easily and had a life beyond the Fringe (whi...

Today saw my second Edinburgh show and my last preview.  I actually felt far better about today's performance compared to yesterday's, which was ironic in a way, as we went up late due to a waiting for five audience members who'd rushed to the door of the venue, thinking they could buy tickets there, to be redirected to the box office only to never come back; I have that effect on would-be punters. This late start meant I had to consciously pace things up and cut the odd line here and there to finish on time, which actually made the whole thing feel more cohesive; on this basis, I'm going to start tomorrow's show next Wednesday.  Amongst today's bijou audience was the technician from Glyn's and my first Edinburgh show The Balloon Debate, with his girlfriend, who we last saw in either 2010 or 2011, when we were up here with Mostly Comedy (and possibly our Meadow Bar show Big in Small Places; it's hard to remember which, as each year rolls into one).  A...

A number of years back – I forget when, but it was more than a decade ago – I wrote a comedy song with my friend (and ex-Big Day Out drummer) Chris Hollis. We had a habit of doing this when we were in a band together. In fact, we never collaborated on anything serious. Our songs were written informally, with no intention for use, other than to amuse ourselves – and this one was no exception. I’d recently bought a ukulele, whilst touring the Netherlands, which became the song's starting point. I strummed a few chords on it while we sketched out the lyrics, which took an hour at most. This is what we came up with: The day I met my baby I was playing ukulele in the sunshine. Her name it was Talula And she travelled from Bermuda just to be mine. She loved me and my Hawaiian melody So Talula from Bermuda was my baby My ukulele girl. Well, sometimes I think that maybe That by playing ukulele I annoy her. And when she throws it in the ...