A 'Documentary Comedian' rather than a stand-up then, as Dave Gorman would seem to prefer he is referred to as. Gives a clearer idea of what he does, or at least the angle he comes from, as these routines, lectures and programmes all tell the results of various activities, meetings, journeys, self-imposed trials and tribulations and their comedic results. As a writer, Dave Gorman has a long history in comedy that remains fairly 'back room', that is until his stage show ''Are You Dave Gorman?" became a BBC Series a few years back in 2001 under the title of 'The Dave Gorman Collection'. He hasn't had the need to look back since, with co-writer Danny Wallace also coming out of the shadows and being hailed as a rising comedy star.
In this particular show, a drunken bet by Wallace resulted in Gorman being challenged to find one person sharing his name for each of the cards in a complete deck - 54 in total - and the results are played out for all their random comedic unplanned journey effects in the form of informal lectures to the audience. Using charts, diagrams, video footage, and dialogue, the story becomes a fascinating compelling journey of really strange behaviour. Although this appeared fairly unannounced, the original nature of the show, the really funny stories that resulted soon had people buzzing with the idea of trying to unearth more Dave Gormans - people emailed suggestions into him, and he has had to publicly request people no longer do so, and you could send off for a badge declaring 'I am not Dave Gorman, Are You?' at the time too - and with the idea of how oddly similar (or not, as the case may be) people with similar names might actually be.
Continuing this new vein of original material, Gorman has continued with similar random(ish) journeys like 'Dave Gorman's Important Astrological Experiment' and 'Googlewhack Adventure', his live tours are incredibly popular too, as are his various accompanying books and his Radio work also. Highly Recommended.
Dave Gorman at Wikipedia.
Dave Gorman's Official Website.
Dave Gorman's Radio 4 Show 'Genius', Official Website.
Dave Gorman Interview at B3TA.
Dave Gorman's 'Are You Dave Gorman?' R0 NTSC DVD Exclusively at Record Store [Direct Link], February 19th 2007.
