Comedy review: Dave Gorman

Published on Sunday 20 September 2009 20:05

DAVE GORMAN **** BRIDGEND THEATRE, DUMFRIES

FOR a self-confessed prevaricator extraordinaire, Dave Gorman's end product has never seemed to lack ambition. Whether he has been on the hunt for other Dave Gormans across the globe or crossing the US by avoiding chain stores and brand names, the 38-year-old "documentary comedian" has constantly pushed himself creatively and forced audiences to look anew at the world.

With this current national tour, Sit Down, Pedal, Pedal, Stop and Stand Up, he's making his way from venue to venue on a pushbike, which must surely be the trigger for a show about the nobility of a two-wheeled existence triumphing against the evils of motorised life. Except it's not.

He makes the merest mention of his cycling endeavours (it does provide him with one pun-tacular gag about his dad) and essentially this show heralds a return to the pure stand-up which marked Gorman out in the late 1990s as a name to watch.

In fact, much of the show focuses on Gorman's family relationships and his own status as a perennial loser (how he dropped out of university; making a fool of himself in Las Vegas) but the best material comes from the areas he must have thought long and hard over when deciding to make a return to the stand-up game.

A superb section about dropping his keys into a postbox exposes the form's anti-truth foundations while he messes around with audience fears and preconceptions to glorious effect. While Dave Gorman may have become bored with the rituals of stand-up comedy, his instinct for innovation makes him more adept than most at ripping apart its limitations.