mostly david ephgrave

Today proved how much better my show works with a bigger audience, something that's probably not that surprising, though it was lovely to have it confirmed. I didn't have that many in - probably about twelve, though a few more were shown through about ten minutes before the end when it was far too late to do a recap so God knows what they thought I was on about - though the impact on the atmosphere was huge. Suddenly, there were laughs to ride and the chance to have fun with the material, and I felt like a standup again too, which was a bonus. That's one of the positives to doing a lot of shows to small audiences on the Fringe: by the time you're back in front of a more substantial crowd, you quickly see the benefit of all those gigs when you had to work for a reaction. This was the case when we filmed my last show, 'David Ephgrave: My Part in His Downfall', a month after the 2018 Fringe. Putting it in front of a packed crowd felt like a treat, and the fact I wa...

 A little over a week has passed since my last blog post, and I'm still in Edinburgh doing my thing. Monday was my first official day off, which was much-needed, though I did squeeze in an interview for my McCartney McAlphabet co-host Clary Saddler's podcast Mouth-Off and a therapy appointment too. The show itself is going well , though I'm still struggling for numbers. I don't mind performing to a small audience generally as it reminds you to connect instead of going on autopilot, though it's not a cost-effective way to do a fringe run. It also doesn't help you build a grassroots following when so few people get to see it. What's nice is people are getting on board with the subject matter. No show is a wasted opportunity, though it's the stuff around it that's frustrating. For example, yesterday, I set up my gear - no mean feat itself - to pack down moments later because just one person came. Days like this when no one has booked in by the time I...

It's a week today since I caught the train to Edinburgh to bring my show 'Good Grief' to the Fringe, and it's also the first chance I've had to take stock and write something to post here. The short answer to the question, "So, how's it going so far, David?" is, "It's going well, David; thanks for asking", though, as it's the Fringe, that comes with many caveats. Or am I just being pessimistic? The fact is Edinburgh's one hell of an endurance exercise, however you look at it, with a definite sense of one step forward, two steps back.  (And that's just navigating Cowgate.) The biggest challenge is doing it alone. Firstly, there's the logistical impact. Some people who bring shows to Edinburgh have producers and directors assisting them. Not old muggins Ephgrave. The only person I have working for me is my PR, who's brilliant and lovely, but I pay for that (well, not the lovely bit, which comes naturally) as I know with...

I was sad to stumble across the news on Twitter that Lynn Ruth Miller - who up to then was the world's oldest working stand-up - passed away last week. Interviewing Lynn Ruth Miller for More Than Mostly Comedy (13.12.20) I'd only been talking to her via email in July when we rescheduled Mostly Comedy's reopening to September and moved her next appearance at the club to next month as a result. But sadly, that lineup wasn't to be. She was More Than Mostly Comedy's penultimate guest  back in December, and what an eye-opening it was. It's no wonder she made the Telegraph's obituary section at the weekend as she practically squeezed four lifetimes into one. And she was a picture of resilience, having picked herself up more times than a pin in a bowling alley. It sounds like a stock phrase, but she was truly inspirational, and the comedy world is markedly emptier and less colourful in her absence. Not to mention younger. It's not often you share a bill with so...

It's with real sadness and frustration - though it's totally unavoidable - that I've had to cancel my Edinburgh Fringe run. As I've intimated on social media and on my blog, I'm in a punishing situation involving long-standing issues, which have proved too much to work around. Add to this the loss of my dad, the fight to get my PIP reinstated, plus my poor mental health and this final twist was the straw that broke the camel's back. Firstly, I can't thank everyone enough for the ridiculously high level of support I've had to raise the money I couldn't get to due to my dad's assets being frozen after his death. My JustGiving page raised £3120 of the approximate £6500 grand total, which was bloody incredible. I hope no-one thinks the money was pocketed & not used for the cause (said while wearing my gold lamé jacket). While it's true some was spent on things I wouldn't need if I'd known I'd be cancelling - train ticket...

Today’s show had an air of the last day of term about it, largely because I knew at least two of the three people in had seen it before at some stage other, and therefore we could all benefit from relaxing the parameters a little bit. By rights, doing a show in such circumstances shouldn’t be fun, when the amount of people in the audience only narrowly outnumber those on stage, yet it was, with me veering off what I’d now regard as the script (not that I ever formalized it that much) to venture into unknown ground. This was particularly helped by an adlib I delivered, which I can’t for the life of me remember now, but was rightly timed at the moment. It’s a shame I can’t call it to mind now; all I can hope is it will come back tomorrow, as I think it was something that would benefit the show if it was kept in, though I may be wrong as I've no idea what I said now. Prior to the show I got a taxi to the venue with my replacement screen in tow to ...

Today’s show was a promising way to kick off my Fringe run, with a small, yet lovely audience who were pretty vocal and certainly seemed to be enjoying themselves. It was reassuring to hear a lot of laughter at the top, what with all my worrying that the subject matter might make people think it wasn’t comedy. It certainly added a spark of energy to proceedings, though I only felt a step ahead of myself at times, what with it still being new. When you’ve been working on a stand-up show for a while, it easy to forget there are even laughs in it, so it was nice to rediscover that there were (occasionally in places I didn't expect). One thing’s for certain: I’m going to sweat a lot this month. The mix of material and music doesn’t let up for long, though hopefully I’ll settle into it in the coming days and eventually find time to catch my breath. Today’s audience was bolstered by my flyering team who came along to get a firmer idea of what...

With a busy week of Mostly Comedy dates at our first five-day Festival to contend with, it's no wonder I'm behind on my blog. On top of this, I've been doing promotional interviews to sell my forthcoming Edinburgh show 'David Ephgrave: My Part in His Downfall.  In my last post, I shared one such interview with the theatre blogger West End Wilma. Today, I'd like you to cast your eye over another Q&A I did with the alternative Festival magazine, Fringepig; you can read the original article here : ·       Tell me about your Edinburgh show. It’s essentially a one-man self-character assassination with jokes; like performing an autopsy on myself using a mic instead of a scalpel. In the show, I try to work out why a performer who’s achieved more than he perhaps gives himself credit - and who apparently refers to himself in third-person - can only ever remember the bad bits to discard the good. I also consider other culprits who’ve...

Tonight I went down to the Market Theatre to pose for photos for my Edinburgh artwork. Pleasingly, it didn’t take long to get what we wanted, though it will be Glyn’s photoshop that will ultimately swing it and make the idea work. The premise is that I’ll appear to be falling through the air as if I’ve leapt from a plane or off the top of a building, to fit in with the ‘downfall’ theme. To make it work, I jumped up and down repeatedly in front of a green screen, ensuring I lifted my feet up behind me enough that the perspective will look right once we add me to the right backdrop; this seemed the most sensible way to do things, rather than arranging for me to actually leap from a great height. Earlier today, Glyn and I popped into Hitchin Town Hall to organise a few last-minute things for Thursday’s Harry Hill / Simon Munnery Mostly Comedy. What’s good is we managed to alleviate the majority of our concerns about what we know is not the most ...

Sometimes, good news comes in small, yet no less valid packages; so it was for me today, when I received a breakdown of my Edinburgh settlement. Now, don’t get me wrong: the amount quoted won’t act in lieu of a pension (Ha!:“Pension”), but I'm pleased to say not only will the remaining half of my venue hire fee be covered by my ticket sales, I’ll also get nearly two hundred quid back. ‘What’s this, David?” I hear you ask. “They're paying you ?” “Yes, that’s right,” I reply to no-one in particular, “£191.07, to be precise.” Let’s not get too excited; if you tally up the cost of PR, digs, flyerers, technicians, printing, travelling and living, I’m nowhere near being in profit - but I am up on last year, which suggests if I'd had a later performance time, I may have fared even better. There’s definitely a small sense progression when I compare things to 2016; particularly now I’ve had a few months’ distance. The outlay ...

Well, that’s my final 2017 Edinburgh show over with; stick a fork in me: I’m done. I'd hoped the last gig would be a busy one, but ended up only having three people in, which was strange as eight had booked in advance, and one person in the audience (the splendid comic Daniel Cook) was a walk-in, so six punters were missing in action; perhaps they were enticed into a different show instead? Either way, I’ve got their money. Despite the low numbers, it ended up being one of the most fun shows of the run, and a suitable way to draw things to a close. It helped that Dan's a big laugher, but the other two were great too. I was particularly pleased they were all firmly on-board with the ‘comparing my career to Sam Palladio’s’ through-line, as the reaction had been a bit muted for this for the last few gigs; prior to this, Sam’s secret video cameo at the end of the show would usually get big laughs, which always pleased me, as he’s very funny in ...

Today’s show went back to being fun again, after the quietness of the day before. Setting up for today. Performing comedy is like an exercise in psychology. I find it fascinating how two similar-sized audiences can respond so differently from one day to the next, often due to how comfortable they feel about the numbers in the room. Both today and yesterday’s shows had less than ten in, and while today’s crowd were very vocal, yesterday’s seemed self conscious and ever so slightly perplexed, like they’d wandered into the room not expecting a performance to be happening at the far end of it, but didn’t want make a scene by leaving I always try to establish from the off that the audience size doesn't make me feel awkward in the hope this will help everyone relax, but it doesn’t always work. It’s like when you go to an event you’ve been looking forward to for ages, but when it comes to it, you start to over-think things and don’t settle and end ...

It was great to finally get things going today with my first show at this year’s EdFringe. The last few days saw two previews with no turnout, mostly due to the weather and the fact the festival hadn’t truly kicked off yet, but this went in my favour as it gave me a chance to run the show twice in the space, which made me feel more solid when approaching today. One thing I hadn’t quite prepared myself for was the energy required to keep it firing apace, or at least to give the show a sense of cohesion while still letting the jokes sit. I don’t help myself by starting at a lick, therefore making it hard to get my breath back; am I really that unfit? I had fifteen or so in today, which is more than enough to make the show work in the space. What was nice was there was a good range of ages, which reassured me, particularly when some of my references are quite niche. I don't think you need to know the people or things I’m discussing directly as the...

To say yesterday was exhausting would be an epic understatement. The day started with me checking out of my temporary accommodation in a youth hostel (I’m not sure the first word is still applicable to me), leaving my luggage there to go and meet one of my new flyerers for this year. The best way to describe the hostel is “functional”. It was made up a series of mini-flats in a typically many-floored Edinburgh building, with me staying in the forebodingly named Flat 13 at the top of eight (count them: eight) floors. As I walked towards the entrance, one of the people who worked at the hostel asked if I’d like a hand with my luggage, which I politely declined like a typical Brit. It was about five floors in that I knew I’d made a mistake; note to self: next time, say “Yes”. "Cosy." I arrived at City Café at midday to meet my new flyerer Cameron, who’s a nice chap and very keen. It’s so important to have people you can trust f...