Comedian Dave Gorman has his own style that is based around observation, but also obsessive research. He has presented it through the medium of PowerPoint for some time. We saw this on a previous tour, but also on his TV show Modern Life is Goodish.
Last night we saw him live again. This was just down the road from us as the Gordon Craig in Stevenage. We parked in a small car park right outside where the spaces were a little small and then wandered in. It had been a really warm day and I was slightly regretting emulating Dave's usual dress of check shirt and jeans.
There were loads of people around the lobby and bar. As the start time approached several people wandered into the theatre, only be turned away as there was some other show going on in there. We saw another comedian Ed Byrne in there a while back. It seemed Dave was downstairs in the hall, AKA the sports hall that also hosts the local beer festival. This is where we last saw Bill Bailey do his show. It hold about a thousand people and does not seem to have much in the way of air conditioning.
When Dave came on he did remark on the odd venue. This show is really clever with lots of visual gags on the screen. He uses hundreds of slides and has to time things just right at times. He covered lots of topics, from kicking himself in the the private parts, to cryptic crosswords (that he creates) to the strange way the Hollywood walk of fame stars are awarded. It does all link together though and you will find a segment late in the show will call back to something much earlier.
He did ask that the audience not post about certain aspects of the show as that could spoil some things he has set up. He is a bit of a practical joker, but in harmless ways.
We found it really funny and the rest of the audience seemed to to. Unlike the previous show there were no annoying hecklers who try to distract from what people have come to see. The show was about two and a half hours, but kept the momentum up well. I think Dave was suffering a bit from the heat, but he has amazing energy. He is almost as old as me and I am finding I cannot do as much as I used to.
We are seeing a fair bit of comedy this year. The local independent cinema has some comedy nights with several performers. We will see Ed Byrne again at the next one.
The advantage of these local venues is that you can be home pretty quickly. We can get a train into London, but that will mean getting home late from a night out.
There are whole episodes of Dave's show on Youtube.
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