Dave Gorman
David James Gorman is an English comedian, presenter, and writer.
Gorman began his career writing for comedy series such as The Mrs Merton Show and The Fast Show, and later garnered acclaim for his stand-up shows, one of which earned him a nomination for a Perrier Award. He became widely known for his Are You Dave Gorman? stage show, which he debuted at the 2000 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, while its television adaptation was broadcast as The Dave Gorman Collection in 2001.
Gorman followed Are You Dave Gorman? with several other stand-up shows or comedic concepts that were turned into television series, including Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, Genius, and Dave Gorman: Modern Life Is Goodish. He has also been a guest on other shows such as Have I Got News for You, Taskmaster, Go 8 Bit, They Think It's All Over, and QI.
Early life
David James Gorman was born in Stafford on 2 March 1971. He has a twin brother named Nicholas. He attended Walton High School in Stafford, and later studied mathematics at the University of Manchester, but dropped out after two years.Career
Early work
Before his solo successes, he was in demand as a writer, having co-written three series of The Mrs Merton Show, as well as writing for other television series in the UK, including The Fast Show. In 2003, he was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. As a producer, Gorman contributed to two series featuring Jenny Eclair. He has also written for comedians Harry Hill and Steve Coogan.Gorman's first one-man "documentary style" show was titled Reasons to be Cheerful. Billed as "a ninety-minute show based on a four-minute pop song", it was based on the song "Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3" by Ian Dury and the Blockheads. The show examined the song's lyrics in detail, with a view to establishing whether or not each of the items listed in the song was really a reason to be cheerful. The visual aspect of the show was provided by each "reason" being illustrated by one of a collection of second-hand slides that he had accumulated for the show. The show was first performed at the 1998 Edinburgh Festival Fringe and toured theatres afterwards.
His second full-length show, Dave Gorman's Better World, was first performed in Edinburgh in 1999. For the show, he wrote anonymous letters to thousands of local newspapers and asked the public to suggest ways in which one man could make the world a better place. He then attempted to carry out their suggestions in order to determine their efficacy.
''Are You Dave Gorman?''
Gorman shot to fame following a drunken bet with his flatmate Danny Wallace which became the backdrop to a book written by Gorman, and a play written by Wallace. The bet was thus: Gorman claimed he shared the name Dave Gorman with the assistant manager of East Fife F.C. and that there must be "loads" of others around. Wallace disagreed with him, so the two travelled to Methil, with a Polaroid camera, to meet the assistant manager, whose name was indeed Dave Gorman. The bet soon evolved into a monster as, on the way to meet Dave Gormans numbers 4 and 5, Wallace decided Gorman must meet one for every card in the deck.His quest to meet this target is described, with highlights including: five people changing their names by deed poll ; a trip to New York that resulted in failure when he discovered the man he had gone to meet was not Dave Gorman, but B. David Gorman and therefore was ineligible; and the American journey included a meeting with an actor who had played a character called David Gorman, the validity of which is hotly contested in the book.
''Dave Gorman's Important Astrology Experiment''
Gorman's second television series, broadcast on BBC Two in September 2002, was titled Dave Gorman's Important Astrology Experiment and was based upon the idea of a controlled scientific experiment, although naturally not a serious one. The series had six episodes.The premise was that it would test whether or not astrology really worked. Over the course of 40 days, he would try to follow any instructions given to people with his star sign in a selection of horoscopes, while his "control experiment" ignored them. Each would record the events of each day, and how they fared in each of three areas of life: love, health and wealth. On each episode of the show, Gorman would show footage of the amusing situations he got into by trying to follow his horoscope, and then asked a panel of "experts", agony aunt Denise Robertson, GMTV's Hilary Jones and financial expert Alvin Hall, in the studio to assess how he had fared in the three areas. Following an audience vote, Gorman would display on a "happiness graph" the difference between how he and his twin brother had fared that week, and whether it showed that astrology had produced a positive effect, a negative effect, or no significant effect at all.
The results of the "experiment" showed that his overall happiness, love, and wealth steadily began to recede over time. Throughout the experiment, he had numerous adventures, including travelling to New York City to meet a long lost friend and then leaving a few hours later because he was ordered to spend as much time at home as possible, sharing pizza in a park while dressed in a rubber suit, and reading an illegally acquired pornographic magazine at Sunday lunch in front of his mother.
The most notable stunt he had to perform, from episode 2, was standing in Covent Garden on one leg with his foot in a bucket of water, a tangerine in one hand and some breakfast cereal in the other, singing the national anthem backwards and balancing three books on his head. This was taken entirely literally from a very odd horoscope by Jonathan Cainer, which Gorman deemed so implausible that he did in fact present the copy of the newspaper which published it in the studio, while noting his suspicion that perhaps the author of the horoscope found out about his experiment and was pulling a prank on him.
Gorman showed that his wealth was rapidly declining, as were happiness and love, until, on the last day, he invested the last of his money to travel to Dubai to watch a golf tournament and bet on Ian Woosnam, a golfer that shared his birthday. He emptied his account to travel there and, using his lucky number of the day from each of the 40 days of his experiment to determine how much he should bet, went ahead with the plan. However, he then found out that not only was gambling illegal in the country, but also that his lucky number indicated he should bet 2,903 Dirhams, which at the time was £549. Ultimately, he borrowed the money from his mother and asked her to bet the sum on Ian Woosnam to win the match of the day, as he had been instructed by his horoscope.
With his happiness at an all-time low, love scraping the bottom, and his finances in an extremely negative position, the experts, his mother, Wallace, the crowd and Gorman himself could only hope the bet would pay off – which it ultimately did at odds long enough to place him not only back at level wealth, but supplying him with twice as much cash as he had started off with. Therefore, he "proved" that astrology works and has made him happier than the control.
''Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure''
In 2003, Gorman toured Britain with a show titled Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, and published a book of the same name. It is another true story. As a result, he believes people took him more seriously and a new novel was commissioned. While trying to write a novel for his publisher, Random House, Gorman became obsessed with Googlewhacks when someone notified him that his site had one, and caused him to travel across the world finding people who had authored them. He eventually spent his publisher's advance on the quest, without writing any of the promised novel, and had to create the Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure show to pay them back.This show was premiered at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and then went on to sell out for a two-week run at the Sydney Opera House's Studio Theatre. It also sold out at the George Square Theatre as part of the 2003 Edinburgh Festival Fringe before embarking on a major UK tour of 75 shows in the space of three months. It won Gorman the award for Best One Person Show at the HBO U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen, Colorado, an award he had previously won for the show Are You Dave Gorman? He ended up writing a book about his Googlewhack Adventure which went on to be the Sunday Times number one best seller. During his Googlewhack adventure, Gorman had a nervous breakdown, which he discusses frankly in the show.
In 2004, a DVD of the Googlewhack Adventure was released which was filmed at Swansea Grand Theatre. In 2005, Gorman toured the U.S. and performed his Googlewhack show in several cities. While in Los Angeles, he appeared on The Tonight Show, elaborating on his travels and his quest. This tour, in which he stayed at chain motels and experienced corporate America, led him to undertake a road-trip across the U.S. in which he avoided such hotels and corporate petrol stations in favour of family-owned businesses. The road trip was documented as the book and film America Unchained.