The Greatest Trick

Well, this strictly isn’t a film but a recording of a one-man stage show, but in honour of us re-instating our subscription to lovefilm.com, we felt it appropriate to review the first thing we watched. For those of you who don’t know, Dave Gorman began in stand-up but has been pursuing ‘documentary comedy’ for some years now. Author of the book and show ‘Are you Dave Gorman?’, where he spends the best part of his life looking for people with the same name as him, and friend to Danny Wallace, who you may have seen on TV recently starting his own country, the man is funny and erudite and has a knack for finding himself in odd situations. The Googlewhack Adventure demonstrates this admirably.

A Googlewhack, again in case you weren’t sure, is when you type 2 random words into Google, hit search and have just one page come back as your result. Those of you who know what it is have surely tried it, those who don’t will probably go and do so now. Go on, I’ll wait for you.

Ready? Done it? Not alwasy easy, is it? Anyway, bitten by the Googlewhack bug by a chance encounter with an Australian online stranger who discovers that Dave’s site contains one, Gorman sets off on an unwilling quest. He explains in some detail how now he was 31 he couldn’t possibly respond to a stupid bet to find 10 googlewhacks in a row and meet them all by his 32nd birthday. He brings a lot of detail to his tale of MASSIVE coincidences which start the whole thing off, and drunken events that conspire to get him to Washington DC on New Year’s Day 2003. And under duress, he begins to meet his googlewhacks in Boston and Columbus and Austin and London and Wales and San Diego etc etc. By the time he has come to terms with the fact that he is spending all the money advanced to him for a novel, he is so entrenched in the quest that it has taken over his life.

The presentation of the show is simple and highly effective. Gorman stands in front of a big screen with a remote for his computer and projects images which help him tell his story. And he tells his story with warmth, wit and a style that draws you in straight away. It’s just a guy recounting a fascinating anecdote of a few months of his life, in front of loads of people. The one thing that detracted for us was the use of more swearing than is strictly necessary, but in a live show that is often the case. The fact is, the man can tell a story well, and the circumstances have to be heard to be believed. There are many points in the show where you can feel the audience’s tension, and I think that’s quite impressive. Recordings of plays / shows are notoriously badly-done in my opinion, or simply unsatisfactory as a viewing experience. Due to its simplicity, this one is not.

Having said that, very simply, we preferred the book. Isn’t it always the way? It has more detail about certain encounters (such as the Welsh mini-drivers club and the alternative music scene adored by one American googlewhack) which are just as funny to read about as the rest, and with less swearing. And taking longer than 2 hours to read it made you feel like this was consuming his life more than it did as a whistle-stop stage show, even though the running time of the show was healthy - you get plenty for your money! If documentary comedy is your thing, and it has been for Heidi & I on and off over the past few years, check this out. Or buy the book.