- For the ice hockey player, see Dave Gorman (ice hockey)
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| Birth name | David James Gorman |
| Born | March 2 1971  Stafford, England |
| Official site | http://www.davegorman.com/ |
David James Gorman (born March 2, 1971) is a documentary comedian and humourist. He performs comedy shows on stage in which he tells stories of extreme adventures and presents the evidence to the audience in order to prove to them that, unlike in most other stage presentations, they are true stories. He is a former stand-up comedian. Gorman was born in Stafford, England. He studied mathematics at Manchester University[1] (but never graduated[1]), and before his solo successes, was in demand as a writer, having co-written three series of The Mrs Merton Show as well as writing for many other TV series, including The Fast Show, in the UK. In 2003, he was listed in The Observer as one of the 50 funniest acts in British comedy. 2006 saw him becoming an occasional contributor on Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Dave also regularly appears on the BBC Three show Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive, a comedy show about the making of a celebrity panel show hosted by Rob Brydon. Dave Gorman is one of the show's team captains. Staffordshire University awarded Gorman an honorary doctorate in 2006.
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Are You Dave Gorman?
Dave Gorman shot to fame following a drunken bet with his flatmate Danny Wallace. The bet was thus: Dave claimed that he shared the name "Dave Gorman" with the assistant manager of East Fife F.C. and that there must be "loads" of others around. Danny disagreed with him. So the two travelled to Methil (from London — several hundred miles), with a polaroid camera, to meet the assistant manager, whose name was indeed Dave Gorman. The bet soon evolved into a monster: on the way to meet Dave Gormans numbers four and five, Danny decided Dave must meet one for every card in the deck (including the Jokers). His quest to meet this target was described, highlights including 5 people changing their name by deed poll (two of whom were women), and a trip to New York that resulted in failure when he discovered the man he'd gone to meet was not Dave Gorman, but B. David Gorman and therefore was ineligible. The trip to New York also included meeting 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
His second television series, broadcast on BBC Two, was entitled Dave Gorman's Important Astrology Experiment, and was quite a novel and unexpected idea for a comedy show, being 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 forty days, he would try to follow any instructions given to people with his star sign in a selection of horoscopes, while his "control experiment" (his twin brother, Nick) 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, Dave would show footage of the amusing situations he got into by trying to follow his horoscope, and then asked a panel of "experts" in the studio to assess how he had fared in the three areas. Following an audience vote, Dave 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' were dramatic indeed. The various charts showed that his overall happiness, love and wealth steadily began to recede over time (especially wealth as he was forced to travel excessively). Throughout the experiment he had numerous adventures, including traveling to New York 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, 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, in a bowl that cost £85 from Harrods singing the National Anthem backwards (literally taken from one very odd horoscope), and the ethical trauma of reading a pornographic magazine at Sunday Lunch in front of his mother. He 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 (the Dubai Desert Classic) and bet on Ian Woosnam, a golfer that shared his birthday (and would therefore share his luck). 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 2903 Dirhim, which at the time was 549 pounds sterling - a feat impossible since he was now out of funds. Ultimately he borrowed the money from his mother and ordered his friend, and fellow Documentary-comedian, Danny Wallace (humorist) (of Join Me fame) 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, Danny, the crowd and, of course, Dave 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 he toured Britain with a show entitled Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure, and published a book of the same name. It is another true story. At 31 Dave decided to give up his stupid ways, grow a beard and write a novel. As a result Dave believes people took him more seriously and a new novel was commissioned. Whilst trying to write a novel for his publisher (Random House) Dave became obsessed with Googlewhacks, when someone notified him that his site had one (Francophile Namesakes), and caused him to travel across the world finding people who had authored them (one of whom turned out to be one of the Dave Gormans he had met in his first adventure). He eventually spent his publisher's advance on the quest, 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 (albeit in its smallest venue: Studio Theatre). It also sold out in a major venue at the 2003 Edinburgh Fringe (George Square Theatre) before embarking on a major UK tour of 75 shows in the space of 3 months. It won Dave 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 popular Googlewhack Adventure was released which was filmed at Swansea Grand Theatre. In 2005 he toured the U.S. and performed his Googlewhack show in several cities including Los Angeles. While in Los Angeles, he appeared on The Tonight Show elaborating on his travels and his quest.
Current work
He hosts a BBC Radio 4 show called Genius, in which members of the public submit suggestions to make a better world. Gorman and a guest then assess the idea in order to determine whether it qualifies as "genius". He's made many references to disliking Darren Day in various episodes of the show. A pilot for a television version was recorded on 23rd November.[2] On April 24th, 2006, Gorman made his first appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart in which he was credited as the show's Senior New Correspondent. On April 27th, he debuted as the host of the show's satirical statistical analysis piece called "Poll Smoking with Dave Gorman". He was the first Daily Show correspondent to have been born in England, and the third Daily Show correspondent to have been born outside of the United States. His most recent appearance on the show was on October 5th, 2006. He has also appeared co-hosting a segment called "ConTROVersy" with the Daily Show's other English correspondent, John Oliver, in which the pair calmly and genteelly discussed former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair over tea, parodying American stereotypes of Britons. He also starred as a team captain on the BBC Three comedy show/'panel game', Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive. Between October and December 2006, Dave Gorman undertook a coast to coast road trip across the United States of America. A book about the trip, entitled America Unchained: One Helluva Coast-to-coast Anti-corporate Adventure!, is due for publication in April 2008. Amazon UK describes the adventure thus:
The plan was simple. Go to America, buy a second-hand car, drive coast-to-coast without giving any money to 'The Man'. What could possibly go wrong? Dismayed by the relentless onslaught of faceless American chains muscling in where local businesses had once thrived, Dave Gorman set off on the ultimate American road trip - in search of the true, independent heart of the U S of A. He would eat cherry pie from local diners, re-fuel at dusty gas stations on remote highways and stock up on supplies from Mom and Pop's grocery store. At least that was the idea. But in a world of 30,000 McDonalds, 13,000 Starbucks, and 4,200 Best Westerns, could it really be done?When did you last see an independent gas station? Gamely, Dave beds down in a Colorado trailer park, sleeps in an Oregon forest treehouse, and even spends Thanksgiving with a Mexican family in Kansas. But when his classic coast-to-coast trip mutates into an odyssey of near-epic proportions and he finds himself stealing food from the Republican Party in Utah and being threatened by men with guns in Mississippi, Dave wakes up to the fact that his American adventure has spiralled out of control...
A documentary film of the adventure has also been made, and will be shown on the British TV channel More4 in January or February 2008. In 2007 the won the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature at the Austin Film Festival.
References and footnotes
- ^ a b BBC - h2g2 - 'Are You Dave Gorman?' - by Dave Gorman and Danny Wallace - the Book. BBC. Retrieved on 2006-09-18.
- ^ Wolf, Ian (2007-09-19). A Genius TV programme (English). British Sitcom Guide. Retrieved on 2007-09-20.
External links
- Dave Gorman's website, which contains sections on:-
- Dave Gorman's photos on Flickr
- Interview – from the B3ta website.
- BBC Genius page
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| Jane Bussmann | Craig Cash | Dave Gorman | Graham Linehan | Arthur Mathews | Lise Mayer | Bob Mortimer | Henry Normal | David Quantick |
| Characters |
| Characters with spin-off shows: Ted and Ralph | Swiss Toni | Ron Manager | Billy Bleach Other Characters:The Suit You Tailors | 'Unlucky' Alf | Arthur Atkinson | Rowley Birkin QC | Brilliant Kid | Bob Fleming | Chanel 9 | Chris the Crafty Cockney | Dave Angel, Eco-Warrior | Johnny Nice Painter | The Offroaders | The 13th Duke of Wybourne Full List of Characters |
