The Dave Gorman Collection (BBC2, 2001)/Dave Gorman’s Important Astrology Experiment (BBC2, 2002)
Dave Gorman is a comedian whose style isn’t like many others. While most simply perform their stand-up routine on-stage and offer their jokes and observations on life, Gorman liked to tell stories about the bizarre ideas that he went to extreme lengths to achieve. He had already been on the comedy scene for about a decade, when found fame with his show.
One day, he discovered that there was someone else who was called Dave Gorman, who was a football assistant manager in Scotland. After going to meet him, he thought that there could be other namesakes, and as there seem to be a rather large amount of people who have the first name Dave, maybe this couldn’t be too difficult. He then decided to take the challenge to meet 54 other people called Dave Gorman, wherever they may be in the world.
He featured his story of how this all happened in the book Are You Dave Gorman?, and a successful stage show, along with the TV show The Dave Gorman Collection. There was also a time when he lived not too far away from where I do in London, but I imagine that he wasn’t there that often, and for all I know, there was probably a sign often on his front door that said “I’ve gone off to America for a day or two to meet a namesake!”.
Indeed, he does end up meeting a huge amount of people called Dave Gorman, who had various jobs, and all have a story to tell. And he has documented how he achieved all of this. He must’ve realised that this was going to dilute his feeling of individuality somewhat, but he remained committed to the task. Following this success, he decided to take on more unusual ideas.
A year on, he had a new TV series called Dave Gorman’s Important Astrology Experiment. In this, he followed his daily horoscope in the newspaper, and did what was recommended to the word, meaning once again he ended up getting into lots of bizarre situations. He then went on to do further stage shows including his Googlewhack Adventure (that I reviewed a while back), and hosted comedy panel game Genius.
And in more recent years, he has continued to perform. Rather suitably, he joined the channel Dave, and he hosted further comedy series including Modern Life Is Goodish and Terms And Conditions Apply, where in his now familiar style, he used graphs and pictures to explain his thoughts, as he tried to make some more sense of the world around him.
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