Part of Camden’s annual fringe festival, …and Ephgrave sees comedian David Ephgrave taking on his first solo show without the aid of his double act partner, Glyn Doggett. It had moments of real humour but overall fell slightly flat and leaves you feeling entirely indifferent about Ephgrave’s comedic skill.

Entering the venue was really rather a mission in itself – being the first day of the new football league (probably not the correct terminology) meant the fans were out in force and seemingly all congregated in the Oxford Arms pub through which access to the Etcetera Theatre is granted. It is quite amazing then that from upstairs you can’t hear a single cheer or shout, with crystal clear sound proofing and quality throughout the show.

 Ephgrave begins his show by discussing a review in which he is described as ‘45 minutes of meh’. I dearly hoped he would prove this wrong, but upon leaving the show I couldn’t help but feel this was entirely accurate, with the only alteration being that the show was actually 60 minutes long. It’s not completely awful; there are some funny jokes in here and there so I didn’t feel as if I’d completely wasted my time.

But it is not, by any stretch of the imagination, a completely hilarious night out – I even found myself feeling slightly bored in places. There seemed to be a lot of references to the 80s which were completely lost on me (the 80s predate me by about 15 years) and there were far too many jokes about a band named Shed Seven that were similarly wasted on an audience that did not have any clue who they were (after a quick Google I’ve discovered they seem to be a sort of dodgy Oasis inspired Britpop band).

Ultimately the show seemed a bit over-rehearsed, slightly false and entirely forced. It felt as if Ephgrave was trying to pass off scripted diologue as improvised remarks, even saying that he ‘could have worded that better’ whilst it seemed the reality was he’d spent weeks on wording it improperly in order to be able to make it another joke.

Rounding up the show with a great speech about the need to support The Camden Fringe as it offers a less expensive alternative to Edinburgh, I felt I had warmed slightly to Ephgrave’s performance. But alas it was only short lived as his final joke was at the expense of what can only be described as the most important band of our time: McBusted.

…and Ephgrave is playing the Etcetera Theatre until 9 August. For more information and tickets, see The Camden Fringe website. Photo by The Camden Fringe.