''Are You Dave Gorman?'' is the title of a stage show by the British
documentary comedian Dave Gorman and the book of the same name, co-written by Gorman and
Danny Wallace. The
BBC television series ''The Dave Gorman Collection''—Gorman's first television show—was based on the show. The original show was created for the 2000
Edinburgh Festival Fringe and was nominated for a prestigious
Perrier award
Perrier ( , also , ) is a French brand of natural bottled mineral water obtained at its source in Vergèze, located in the Gard ''département''. Perrier is known for its carbonation and its distinctive green bottle.
Perrier was part of th ...
. An extended version of the show was taken to the
West End, then to the
Melbourne International Comedy Festival
The Melbourne International Comedy Festival (MICF) is the largest stand-alone comedy festival and the second-largest international comedy festival in the world. Established in 1987, it takes place annually in Melbourne over four weeks, typicall ...
(where it was nominated for a
Barry Award), the
HBO US Comedy Arts Festival
The Comedy Festival, formerly known as the US Comedy Arts Festival, was a comedy festival that ran from 1995 to 2008. The festival included stand-up comedy performances, appearances by the casts of television shows, and has a film component calle ...
in
Aspen, Colorado
Aspen is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Pitkin County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 7,004 at the 2020 United States Census. Aspen is in a remote area of the Rocky Moun ...
(where it won the Jury Award for Best One Person Show) and finally to New York where it ran for more than three months and was named Best Comedy Show of 2001 by ''
Time Out'' New York.
Evolution
The show originated following a drunken bet between Dave Gorman and his friend Danny Wallace. The bet was thus: Gorman 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. Wallace disagreed with him. So the two travelled to
Methil (from
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
—several hundred miles), with a polaroid camera, to meet the assistant manager, whose name was indeed Dave Gorman. More trips followed, to meet more Dave Gormans. During a trip to New York, Gorman applied somewhat arbitrary criteria to exclude one man from the list on the grounds that a metal plaque outside his offices showed his name as "B. David Gorman" (his justification for this—given on his web forum—was "You've got to have rules"). He did, however, count meeting
an actor who had once played a character called Dave Gorman.
Initially the bet was fairly vague, but on the way to meet Dave Gormans numbers three and four, they debated what "loads" meant. Wallace decided on one for every
card in the deck including the jokers (54). They tried to keep within a distance of per Dave Gorman, to show that the name was very common.
Stage show
To aid the search, Gorman created a stage-show about their travels that was also used to appeal for further Dave Gormans to come forward. The show was called ''Are You Dave Gorman?'' This acquired something of a cult following and several people helped Dave in his quest, which he did eventually complete. Five even changed their names by
deed poll to Dave Gorman—two of them women.
Television show
All this came to the attention of the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
, who gave Gorman a series, co-written and co-produced by Wallace. For copyright reasons, the title was changed to ''The Dave Gorman Collection''. The show was effectively the same as the stage show, and took the form of televised lectures, in which he explained what he had done. The six episodes were directed by
. Later, after the TV series was broadcast, a book entitled ''Are You Dave Gorman?'' was written by Gorman and Wallace.
Once the TV show existed Gorman stopped touring the show in the UK, instead taking it to several overseas festivals and later running the show for three months
s have named fictional characters Dave Gorman as an in-joke and the comedian has been bombarded with so many e-mails about it that he has had to publicly appeal to people to stop sending him details of other Dave Gormans.
The show was released on DVD on 19 February 2007 under the title ''Are You Dave Gorman?''. It is, however, only available to buy from his website and on Recordstore.