mostly david ephgrave

While writing my new show's progressing reasonably steadily, in my heart, I know it needs to be the last project I do alone for some time. I guess it was my choice - though it often doesn't feel like it - that most things I do now are self-generated, but they all leave me needing to draw on a reserve of self-belief that's fragile at best. I have to ignore so much negative reinforcement to keep going, which is hard when the personal problems I've suffered have much the same impact. The truth is that what I do is increasingly lonely, and isolation triggers the false narratives my past can dredge up. I think my abandonment issues are understandable, but it doesn't stop them from dragging me back. And recent events in my life have reinforced my lack of self-worth, making it harder to ignore them. I didn't deliberately set out to be a solo performer. I was in a band and a double act and sought healthy collaboration. And while being an actor inevitably requires forgin...

I've had a small idea for a new podcast over the past few days that I may pursue, though I'm not entirely sure the best way to go about it. My main issue is who I should approach with it. I'd go to Glyn with the concept - partly as having a new project could breathe new life into our act - but I don't think it's necessarily suited to him even if it would ultimately be the most likely route to become a reality. There's no substitute for the shorthand that comes with years of collaboration, but if I'm honest, I feel like we may have run our course when it comes to brand new output. And I'd like to enter into any future joint projects with equal enthusiasm and a fresh slate. The other person I have in mind is probably more suited to it anyway, and we've talked for years about working together more directly. And while he's not a performer per se, he'd probably be more available and keener. So it's pretty much a no-brainer. And it's not li...

I did quite bit of work on my show today, both in terms of running the material and orchestrating the admin that goes with it, but I'm finding it hard to make improvements - or to even know that's what they are - without a director to steer me through it. Sadly, it all goes down to personal judgement at the moment, as it’s next-to-impossible to get someone to commit to helping me out and - even if they were to - they’d have to be just the right person for the job. What I could really do with someone to tell me what’s already right as I’m naturally hypercritical, and I don’t want to replace stuff that works with stuff that doesn’t, if things evolve that way without the benefit of an outside eye to put a lid on it. I was surprised to find a fair amount already worked when I did my work-in-progress dates in Bath in April and Brighton in May; I don’t want to lose the essence of what I did there through over-thinking and over-editing it, but at the same time, I still w...