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...

This turning 41 lark is a bit of a funny one. While last year's birthday was one to be aware of, this year has made me a smidge more melancholy. Only a bit, though. I'm well aware of how these little emotional peaks and troughs fluctuate, and consequently, I try not to read too much into them. Reflection can be a poisoned chalice, and I've had a lot of reasons to look back lately, which were bound to affect me, so I'm trying not to overthink it. I try not to get too drawn into what doesn't matter now. The online world is a case in point. It only takes a quick browse of Instagram or Facebook to be confronted by at least three things that'll make you feel shit, particularly if you're not in the habit of carefully cultivating your social media presence. You start being bothered by stuff you'd never consider in real life.  "Why wasn't I invited to this terrible event I'd despise if I'd attended?" Why does everyone look so happy in this ...

The big news is I'm taking a show to Edinburgh this year, and I'm trying to get as much of the admin sorted as swiftly as possible so I can clear time to write it. As it stands, I'm creaking toward that kicking-off point. The show will be about my dad (the one slated for 2020 until Covid hit and put paid to that), and I'm excited and apprehensive about the task ahead. There's so much I want to get across - as my pages of scribbled notes already testify - but primarily, I want to capture my dad's character so that the audience leaves the room feeling like they just met him, which is no mean feat. And I want to tackle what's it like to lose a loved one without forgetting that the show's a comedy (which, as far as challenges go, is worthy of fully spandexed Anneka Rice). What's helped so far is the groundwork I did in 2020. For example, I already had a blurb that just needed tightening up. And I've also got a lot of material about him already, which...

It may be a symptom of feeling a little rundown and sorry for myself, but listening to a random Oasis song this morning surprised me by hitting me right in the heart. The song was 'Don't Go Away' from their overblown 1997 album, 'Be Here Now'. I don't even know why it entered my head as it wasn't a big hit and, if anything, comes across as a little generic. But, for whatever reason, I requested it via everyone's favourite spy-in-the-room, Alexa, and, within minutes, I was blubbing like a Daily Express reader who's just seen a photo of Princess Di. Or George Osborne at Thatcher's funeral.  Okay, I may be exaggerating, but it moved me, even though it was probably the germs talking. Oasis are an odd band for me as there was a time when I was really liked them. They appeared on the scene when I was a guitarist in a group at school and somehow made being in a rock band seem viable again. But my love for their music faded quickly, and now, most of thei...

And so Mostly Comedy has closed. Our closure statement (26.04.2022). Arriving at this decision was difficult. It went against my natural-born instinct to keep things going at all costs. My brain has an annoying habit of defining what I do on the times when it isn't plain sailing at the exclusion of any evidence to the contrary, and this was no exception. But the fact is the circumstances we found ourselves in thanks to the pandemic were unprecedented and extremely hard to fight, particularly when you have so little money to start with and are constantly calling in favours from friends to make the shows run smoothly on the day. Pre-show audience at a Hitchin Town Hall Mostly Comedy (June 2019) The sad thing is I had visions of it carrying on long into the future, though if I could find a way to outsource some of the admin, that would've helped. I liked the idea of reaching our twentieth anniversary - we were already close to our fourteenth - as, for some reason, the idea that it...

The plum tree my wife bought me for my fortieth has started showing tiny shoots and leaves, which is a handy metaphor for a new beginning as far as these things go. It's surprising what such a tiny aspect of the natural world can do for your mood. Sitting in the garden now in the sun has given me a burst of energy I didn't have before. It's like a balm for the mind. Until I moved out of Hitchin, I've never had a garden, aside from a communal one at my first flat, which we never used due to some deep-seated need to hide from our neighbours. It's the same reflex that makes you pretend you've not seen someone you know on the street, only more intense, as you've less reason to chat to the guy who banged on the ceiling the night before because you were listening to Bob Dylan too loudly. Oh, those carefree student days (when I swear no-one smoked wacky baccy). (For an insight into our antics, my flatmate Mark was once an hour late for his girlfriend because we wer...

I'm delighted to say that, after just under two years of trying, I'm the proud owner of a little Covid in the country. Scan the QR code for a short clip of me inserting a swab in a cavity of my choice. Having those two red lines pop up so quickly was the scratchcard win I'd always dreamed of, and a result that the Government's PCR test-analysing scientists confirmed for me today. It's either that or I'm pregnant. You do wee on the little gubbins, don't you? That's why they call it lateral flow. The good news is I'm currently not feeling too bad, aside from a sore throat and general tiredness, which is pretty much my natural state. And obviously, my first thought was to show a wanton disregard for social distancing by driving to the nearest castle (that's apparently in Walkern, and no doubt haunted by a ghost called Christopher, who dances around the grounds to the club-singing bark of present-day Elton John). And I licked anyone who got in my way...