mostly david ephgrave

It wasn’t until I posted a tweet to advertise the next two months’ Mostly Comedy line-ups that I realised the acts appearing were all men. I’m annoyed about this, if I’m honest, as I try hard not to make this the case. There should always be an equal spread of male and female comics, though admittedly, however aware I am of this, sometimes acts’ availabilities mean the line-up I aim for may not be the line-up I get. However good our intentions may be, we ultimately want a bill that will sell, plus we reach a point where we just need a bill confirmed. It’s not that I want to go down the same route the BBC famously – and controversially – went with panel shows, insisting that every show should have at least one woman in the line-up. If anything, this made their male-to-female ratio worse , with them settling for just on e woman per show, instead of an even amount. Also, why make panel shows the scapegoat, when male bias is a problem across the bo...

Why do footballers hug after they score a goal? It’s their job . It’s one of the few acceptable instances of tactility in the workplace. It wouldn’t translate to many other walks of life. If I cuddled Glyn every time one of our jokes got a laugh it would be weird. Sexy but weird. (At least we know it wouldn't happen often.) What makes it strange is football is notoriously close-minded. Homophobia in the sport is rife. There are no openly gay players in the top four divisions, which is a statistical impossibility. A footballer’s sexuality is, of course, irrelevant, but the fact that no top-level players are prepared to come out only serves to illustrate how much of a problem there obviously still is. Why is one of our most lucrative industries still intensely homophobic, sexist and racist? If a fraction of the huge fees paid to the players each week was channeled into their reeducation, we might start to tackle the issue. No pun inte...