Review: Dave Gorman Gets Straight To The Point* (*The Powerpoint)
A Dave Gorman show is unlike any other you are likely to see. His unique mix of stand-up, storytelling and mischief has become as much of a trademark as the slideshow presentations he uses to deliver it.
This year’s show, Dave Gorman Gets Straight To The Point* (*The Powerpoint) builds on the success of his Powerpoint Presentations. The format is much the same, with his main show preceded by a support act that most of his audience probably haven’t heard of.
Far from appearing to “give some upstart a helping hand”, Gorman hand-picks acts to tour with that he genuinely loves to watch. This year he brings Edinburgh Fringe favourite Nick Doody to Newcastle’s Theatre Royal.
Doody takes the stage, after a city-specific introduction from an on-screen “Dave Gorman” with an affected limp, leading straight into a story about gigging in the Alps, and the class boundaries associated with Skiing.
He moves fluently from that into a routine on air travel, and from there into a wide range of observational topics covering the news, accents and local identity (especially relevant in Newcastle), a classic extended piece on relationships and the different approaches to life between men and women, and – memorably – a diatribe on the most ridiculous phrases you often hear used among friends.
His style is conversational, and he skilfully leads the audience down some very dark paths, step by step without causing offence – even when touching on hot-potato topics.
Nick Doody is very much a comedian’s comedian. His effortless, confident delivery and lack of obvious segues belie an incredible talent, and his set includes almost every comedic technique available without the use of props, partners, or technology. For fans (dare I say geeks) of the art form itself, Doody is an absolute treat.
As for Gorman himself, the main act begins leading the sell-out crowd in a rendition of “If you’re happy and you know it clap your hands”, instantly deconstructing its premise and plotting Happiness vs Knowledge on an interactive graph, pulling out yet another personal trademark of using mathematical concepts to explain his outlook and make his particular point.
Anyone who has seen Modern Life Is Goodish will be familiar with the format of Gorman’s powerpoint-based shows, but he has been doing it since the days of slide projectors, and he shares some choice stories from the 20,000-strong collection of physical slide photos he has amassed.
Gorman draws some brilliant parallels between life as it appears in the slides (most of them from the early 1980s) and as it is shown on Facebook today. He bemoans the use of the words selfie and photobomb, despite having no issue with the activities which have obviously been around as long as photography itself.
As ever with Dave Gorman, he swiftly turns the sublime to the ridiculous with animations of the old slides, and veers into his mischievous side, explaining some top-level meddling which involves a fake TV show, fake internet profiles, and some very real TV executive’s email addresses.
As with Doody’s support set before him, Gorman mixes a huge variety of comedic techniques to create an incredibly entertaining evening, culminating in a great reveal and a callback to an earlier routine, joined onstage by Doody.
It is difficult to pick a highlight in a show so jam-packed with entertainment, but Gorman’s boyish glee when reciting the words of angry internet commenters in the form of a “found poem” probably has to take it.
Date of live review: Sunday 9 November 2014 @ Theatre Royal, Newcastle.
