Dave Gorman’s been sort of quiet since he first brought his comedy PowerPoint style of stand-up to the tele with Are You Dave Gorman, but his return with Dave Gorman vs the Rest of the World is a continuation of his fixation with the internet and the way things are.
The book centres on one simple, but beautiful premise; namely the adult reality of no longer calling on your mates to see if they can come out to play. It’s one of a few things that we no longer get to do now that we’re growd up, along with throwing a javelin (unless you’re an athlete, tribesman or eccentric assassin), playing computer games every afternoon for the entire summer holidays and games of kiss chase (special shout outs to Zena from Dove Bank, the blond girl from St Johns and Kelly Tooth, who I didn’t play kiss chase with, but thought about it a lot).
So, in Dave Gorman vs the Rest of the World, Dave has foregone knocking on a mates door and opted for the internet instead, asking 76,000 people whether they fancied coming out to play (something online daters can probably associate with. But, hey, it’s a numbers thing. You ask enough lonely people if they fancy a drink with a fat, balding middle aged sadomasochist called Clive from Burnley and you’re bound to get lucky once in a while).
Games played included classics like Scrabble, darts and Frisbee, but also took in some odd ball efforts like Tikal and Smite (not sure if these were Clive’s offering). Even though Dave stuck to the British Isles he still managed to play enough games to fill out 352 pages in Dave Gorman vs the Rest of the World, so either he played a lot of games, or he took his time about.
Released on 2nd June 2011 in paperback.
