mostly david ephgrave

Today was the second show in a row I’ve had to cancel due to being unable to hear, which is very frustrating; not least as - what with the audience arriving late on Tuesday - I haven’t actually had a show this week. At least this time I made the decision before leaving for the venue and setting up, but it will still late-in-the-day enough for me to have less than an hour to get the message to the venue, my technician, my flyerers and a friend who was coming to watch, plus it was also the performance my mum had specifically come up to Scotland to see. I know I had no choice, but it’s still not the most auspicious way to end my run, plus it'll make it harder to settle the remainder of my venue hire-fee from ticket sales too. No sooner had I cancelled the show than I set to work at trying to book an appointment with a hearing specialist, but unfortunately the earliest I could be seen was tomorrow afternoon, which leaves it up in the air as to whet...

I had to cancel today’s show despite having a good turnout (for me), for the simple reason I couldn’t hear a bloody thing. The cause was both dull and grim in equal measure: I occasionally have too much earwax for my own good, which is related to my whole vertigo situation, which at its worst will block my ear canal so much that no sound can get in (or out, should it need to); this is particularly the case when I’m rundown, which I clearly am at the moment. I had a similar problem before a show last year too, although it cleared itself just at the right moment; I had my fingers crossed that the same would happen today, but no such luck. I’d gone so far as to walk behind the curtain ready to make my entrance, but had been struggling so much to hear while chatting with my technician Robert just before - who’ll probably spot his name when this blog post briefly pops up on the screen at the end of my show tomorrow, so HI ROBERT - that I got into a bit of a pa...

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 ...

I don’t know what it is that’s making just a single couple tend to turn up to see my show so frequently but it happened again today, though this time they decided against watching it on their own, which is completely understandable, and not something I’d do myself anyway, other than yesterday when the gig started with one of my flyerers in too. Unfortunately, today ended up being another no-show day, which was a shame, but such is life when you start at midday; a couple did come along, though they snuck off when they realised they were the only ones and who can blame them; not that I would have performed the show to just the two of them as it would have been too intense. Once I’d packed down my gear I nipped home for a shower and then on to the station to meet my wife, who’s up until Sunday. The route to the station was packed with the usual dawdlers with no spacial awareness who spread out across the pavement when you’re trying to sneak past, or s...

I ended up cancelling today’s show as only one couple had booked, which was a relief in many ways as I'm very tired. I went out and chatted to them just before I was due to start to see what they’d prefer and we decided mutually that not doing it was the best option, as forcing them into an hour-long eyeballing from me would be pretty intense. They were really very nice about it; I offered them comps should they wish to come another time, though it was only when I got back to my digs that I remembered they would have actually paid for their tickets so I should have offered them a refund too, though according to my ticket report they’d at least opted for a 2for1 deal, so at least they didn't pay full whack (though I still apologise in case they happen to read this). Of course, I would have preferred to have known in advance I wasn’t doing it, instead of setting everything up to pack down again. It doesn’t help that my gaffa tape stocks are r...

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...

Tonight was one of my standard ‘travelling to London to set up for a show that didn't happen' affairs; an experience I seem to go through with alarming regularity. To be fair, it was almost inevitable tonight's show would be cancelled, what with it being a Monday night in the midst of the World Cup and on the first day of Wimbledon, smack-bang in the middle of a heatwave, with a late gig kick-off of 9pm; you didn’t need to be Mystic Meg (or whoever her modern-day equivalent is) to predict that. Nevertheless, I went through the motions in the hope I’d have a chance to talk through a few ideas for Edinburgh to some semblance of an audience, be they last-minute bookings (which didn't happen) or comps given out to paper the house (which I offered with no uptake). I nearly didn’t go into town anyway, as for some reason I had barely no energy as I got ready to leave, I had been feeling a little battered down by the whole process over weekend, largely due to being sick o...

One thing I’m finding hard to get my head around as I approach another Edinburgh is ignoring the loneliness that goes with putting together a solo show again. (This will be my fourth in three years, or my difficult fourth album.) I don’t know what it is - it’s probably just cumulative - but I’m finding it difficult to work up the requisite energy. I think it's partly due to the lack of an outside influence to coerce me into doing it. Most of what I do starts and ends with me, and with each passing year, this self-sufficiency becomes boring; I long for the time when someone else brings something to the table that excites and inspires me and becomes a kicking-off point for something creative, but that's not really an option now I'm no longer in a band and my double act's been on a low pilot-light for a few years. Despite my despondent tone, today's actually been a good day creatively, after a thorough sifting through my blog (...

Today, I did just about the most relaxed rehearsal ever, with my cat on my lap (who didn’t laugh once). I try to vary where I do run-throughs, so I don’t get stuck in a rut, or start to only feel comfortable doing it in just one place; sometimes I’ll go through it in my office, which is the most focused space to hand, but the fact it’s in a shared building with people constantly passing my door can make me feel self-conscious if they know I'm the only one there. Rehearsing at home is nice from time to time, though it’s easier to be distracted, particularly if your house is a bit of a mess. That said, it I’m home alone I know I won’t be interrupted, plus I can talk through material at volume without worrying whether anyone can hear. There's a fine line to overrunning stand-up anyway, particularly when you’ve performed the material a lot in the past, as while you do want to remind yourself of it, you don’t want it to go stale; that’s why I decided to keep today’s...

Annoyingly, after some consideration, I had to cancel tonight’s Leicester Square Theatre show too. The reason for this is my labyrinthitis has come back with a vengeance over the last few days. I’d hoped taking yesterday off would help - it certainly did in the sense I didn’t have to go into London and throw myself about while doing my show - but if anything, I’m more dizzy today than I was then. It hasn’t helped that the last few weeks have seen a lot of staring at my computer screen or my phone, primarily to settle details for Jack Dee and Ivo Graham’s appearance at Mostly Comedy next month. It’s a great coup for the club and we’re both very excited about it, but there’s been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing between us, their agent and our venue to finalise details, along with setting up the pre-sale and general sale links for the event so they were all ready to go. That, along with the admin for tomorrow’s show at the Market Theatre and my aborted sh...

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 ...

Much as I’m loath to admit it, the time may have come to retire the envelope I keep my Edinburgh setlist in. The problem is I’m a strange balance between being slightly obsessive-compulsive and gently superstitious, and once I’ve started doing things a certain way, I hate to change them. It’s not so bad that I can’t leave the house without flicking my bedroom lightswitch off and on twenty-seven times while singing Mad Dogs and Englishman in a Glaswegian accent - I managed to knock that on the head - but altering things at this stage still makes me a little uneasy. I didn’t have any problems with last year’s envelope as it was made by Tyvek (which is probably the dullest sentence I’ve ever written on my blog in its four-year history). Tyvek envelopes are far more sturdy than conventional envelopes as they’re technically not made of paper (which is my second dullest sentence); they consist of high-density polythene fibres that have been flash-spun, or at least that...

My Edinburgh prep is now at the manic, multitasking stage. It's been an exercise in juggling from the beginning to be fair, with too much attention given to the administrative side of proceedings, but things are approaching their most difficult. Next Wednesday I somehow have to orchestrate checking out of the hotel I’m staying in for one night as my digs won’t be ready yet (hopefully leaving a month's worth of luggage behind) to get a taxi to a depot on the outskirts of town to pick up my screen, projector stand and a suitcase full of gear; bringing them back knowing I may not have a place to store them until I can get into my digs after 4pm (which I have to pick the keys up for from an office that’s another taxi ride away). I also have to collect my posters and flyers, meet my flyerers and my technician and do a technical rehearsal in the evening; I’ll be lucky if I end the day on top of everything and still in one piece. Today was stressful enough in itself, when...

Today, I did a lovely live interview over the phone to promote ‘Now Who’s a Comedian?' on Fife's K107FM . While I’ve done quite a few radio interviews in the past, mostly for Buddy, there’s always a bit of nerves just before, particularly if - like today - you haven’t spoken to anyone for a few hours before going on-air. You can feel strangely neutral and personalityless, waiting at home in your slippers for the phone call. Some of the interviews I did for Buddy were ridiculous, as the show's producer expected me to do them as if I was Holly himself. A few DJs got on board with this while others thought I was a lunatic for suggesting it; one time, I remember an interviewer deciding to use this as an excuse to test my knowledge about Holly’s career by posing a list of trivia questions for which he clearly knew the answers. Thankfully I knew my stuff too, but it was irritating to find myself walking a tightrope between promoting the show ...

Today I did my first proper run of the show as it stands since my last date in Brighton. Despite not having looked at it for a while, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed doing the first half of it. It zipped along quite nicely and felt right, which is a great place to be, but there’s a definite point about two thirds in from which I know it needs work. It’s just a case of tightening some of the later material, while also fleshing out a couple of the set-pieces. If some of them continue to feel a bit clunky, I’ll replace them with something else, but I don’t intend to do much - if any - of this before Friday’s show, as I don’t want to pressure myself unduly; there’s always time to have a fiddle with the content before my other previews this month. Part of the reason I don’t want to make too many changes now is I’ve still got to sort out the technical side to Friday’s London date, so inevitably I won’t have the time t to do much tinkering w...

I managed to do a tiny bit of writing today, but I wasn’t really in the mood. I hate it when I have a day to myself when I could be working on material, but don’t get much done. I’m the sort of person who’s never happy with my productivity, and very quickly dismiss what I’ve achieved as not enough. It’s an irritating aspect of my personality that I’d love to eradicate or soften, so I don’t run myself into the ground when I never meet my expectations. I made a start on an idea that’s been on the back-burner for a while, but haven't yet seen through. I got a little caught up in the mechanics of the slideshow that will accompany it and, as a result, lost the joy in it a bit. I did manage to make a recording of a rough outline though, so I’ll come back to it tomorrow on fresh ears. Sometimes, you need distance to see the worth in what you’re doing, particularly when you’re not in the right mindset. On the plus side, my Edinburgh show went o...

In many ways, today’s show was the best of the run so far, and the most fun. For the first time, everyone filled from the front, making for a pack of punters right in my eye line, who were on board throughout. I had enough laughter to sit back on and help me enjoy telling the stories, rather than feeling I had to fight to keep the ball in the air (clunky football analogy). It may have been a little indulgent, but I mentioned my one-out-of-five score from a Twitter reviewer who said I failed to produce laughter, to an audible gasp; it was probably unnecessary to say it, but if nothing else it was good for mental health to vocalise my inner monologue at a show where the response from the audience couldn’t have been more at odds with that summary. It was nice that today’s show was a good one, as I had a friend in that I hadn’t seen properly for twenty years, despite having kept contact on Facebook and Twitter. We had a lovely chat over a drink in the ...

I spent some time today gently tinkering with a little material that I might try at Thursday’s Mostly Comedy. If I do it, it will be only be about five minutes' worth. It may even be less than that. It won’t be a full-blown set, just a few gags interspersed between one act and the next; provided Glyn doesn’t object, that is. In fact, if I chicken out and don’t do it, I'll use him as an excuse; my official story will be that he forbade it. (Yes, I said "forbade".) I need to get some momentum going again. I could do with working through my blogs to see what else - besides my ‘…and Ephgrave’ material - will work in a stand-up environment. That’s a pretty daunting task. When you write something every day, you soon lose track of what you’ve talked about. When I have a focus, such a topic for an episode of our radio show, it’s easier to sift out the stuff that’s of use; I just type the appropriate trigger words in the search bar and the odd bit of ready-made...

I'm annoyed that I've sailed so close to the Leicester Festival deadline that I don't think I'll be doing it next year.  That's the downside to being in charge of all your own admin: things can easily slip through the net. Glyn and I nearly missed the deadline the last time we played Leicester two years ago too, but through knowing a promoter, we just managed to squeeze in. They no longer run a venue, so I was unable to pull the same trick this time around. "Dicks".  (I'm the dick, not them.) It's frustrating, as it was part of my game plan for working up a show for next year. If I don't get in, I'll have to substitute it for a few dates elsewhere, but it's great to have the cross-promotion of a festival to shift tickets; I am, after all, an extremely unpopular person. It's a shame, as I really enjoyed the festival both times we did it.  There's still a chance I might snap up a venue last-minute. Be it a shed, a ...

I had my technical rehearsal today for the weekend’s Etcetera Theatre shows, frustratingly in the midst of the twenty-four-hour tube strike. Tube strikes tend to follow Doggett & Ephgrave about. Tube strikes and major sporting events. I’ve lost count of the amount of shows we’ve put on in London on the same day as one or the other, or both; we’re the Mystic Megs of Gig Inconvenience, so don’t ask us for tips on scheduling. Today’s strike really didn’t hold me up, to be fair. I only needed to get from King’s Cross to Camden and back, which is barely any distance. The buses were as plentiful as they were boiling and packed; I arrived at the venue on time, but sweaty. It was strange teching at the Etcetera without Glyn, having done so much there together in the past. It’s our most-used venue outside of Leicester Square and Soho Theatre, and a lovely space with a good set-up. I had the technical manager on hand to assist me, which was great, but it led to a false sense o...