Genius: A Few That Didn't Make It

Also with Frank Skinner

More Dave Gorman videos

Dave Gorman started stand-up in 1990, when still a teenager, after dropping out of his mathematics course at Manchester University. But it took five years for him to start gaining recognition, hosting both the Comedy Zone showcase at the Edinburgh Fringe and appearing on Granada's Stand-up Show in 1995. Writing work began to come in, and he worked on Jenny Eclair Squats, The Fast Show and the Mrs Merton Show.

In 1998, he performed his first solo show, Reasons To Be Cheerful, deconstructing the lyrics of the Ian Dury song, which he followed the next year with Better World, in which he asked local newspaper readers how he could improve the world, then acted n their suggestions. This documentary-style show came into its own in 2000's Are You Dave Gorman? in which, egged on by flatmate Danny Wallace, he travelled the world to try to find 52 namesakes.

Are You Dave Gorman? was nominated for the Perrier award, and won the HBO Comedy Jury Award for Best One Person Show at the US Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen Colorado. It was subsequently made into a BBC Two series, The Dave Gorman Collection, and a successful book.

His second TV series, also broadcast on BBC Two, was Dave Gorman's Important Astrology Experiment, a cod-scientific test to see if he could improve his love, health, and wealth over six episodes if he followed his horoscopes. His twin brother Nick, completely ignored the astrologers, so acted as a control.

In 2003, he embarked on another bizarre quest; this time tracking down people responsible for Googlewhacks - web pages that contain a unique pairing of words, so they are the only result returned when you type the phrase into the search engine. The show, which virtually drove him to a nervous breakdown, started at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, transferred to Edinburgh and a UK tour, and again spawned a bestselling book as well as a live DVD.

Since 2005, Gorman has also hosted the Radio 4 show Genius, in which members of the public submit their brilliant ideas to be put to the test, which transferred to BBC Two in 2009. He has also starred in Rob Brydon's Annually Retentive, a show showing a behind-the-scenes view of a fictional comedy panel game, as himself.

In 2007, he released his documentary feature film, America Unchained, in which he tried to cross America without using chain restaurants, hotels or gas stations. Again, a book accompanied the film.

In 2009, he announced a return to more traditional stand-up - but cycling between the 32 venues in his UK tour.

Skip to page: 1 | 2 | 3

This guy is the Coldplay of comedy. Pure and utter genius.

DOJ, May 2020

LOL @ coldplay comment - the only similarity is that they are both inexplicably popular. I'm not really a fan of either. We saw him at the Frank Skinner credit crunch gig and wasn't much cop - I've never seen him do 'stand up' before and only seen him on screen. Whilst his command of the stage is in no doubt , the material was hovering towards mediocrity , and I couldn't get over his contrived , somewhat 'zany' act I'd seen previously on DVD, which the stand up does move away from, admittedly. I read he's not been doing stand-up as such for very long, so maybe it will get better but he was just average. Can't complain for a tenner though as the rest of the show was great.

Richie, March 2009

Really quite average and beyond the ever present gimmicks, there's not a lot of substance there.

Beth, March 2009

The Coldplay of Comedy. I bet Dave is delighted with that.

Alaric Dynevor, Comedy Cellar, Hudderrsfield, February 2008

Smug, bland, self-satisfied wanker.

richie, February 2008

Desperately unfunny with an element of OCD

Leo Edwards, March 2007

I saw his Googlewhack show on TV - it was a clever idea and funny in parts, but at times got boring and needed more variety. Overall I'd give him a 6/10 and wouldn't pay to see him.

Sophie, March 2007

A monumental bore.

Maggie, September 2006

Skip to page: 1 | 2 | 3