The show originated following a drunken bet between Dave Gorman and his friend Danny Wallace. The bet was thus: Gorman claimed that he shared the name "Dave Gorman" with the assistant manager of East Fife F.C. and that there must be "loads" of others around. Wallace disagreed with him. So the two travelled to Methil, with a polaroid camera, to meet the assistant manager, whose name was indeed Dave Gorman. More trips followed, to meet more Dave Gormans. During a trip to New York, Gorman applied somewhat arbitrary criteria to exclude one man from the list on the grounds that a metal plaque outside his offices showed his name as "B. David Gorman". He did, however, count meeting an actor who had once played a character called Dave Gorman. Initially the bet was fairly vague, but on the way to meet Dave Gormans numbers three and four, they debated what "loads" meant. Wallace decided on one for every card in the deck including the jokers. They tried to keep within a distance of per Dave Gorman, to show that the name was very common.
Stage show
To aid the search, Gorman created a stage-show about their travels that was also used to appeal for further Dave Gormans to come forward. The show was called Are You Dave Gorman?. This acquired something of a cult following and several people helped Dave in his quest, which he did eventually complete. Five even changed their names by deed poll to Dave Gorman – two of them women.
Television show
All this came to the attention of the BBC, who gave Gorman a series, co-written and co-produced by Wallace. For copyright reasons, the title was changed to The Dave Gorman Collection. The show was effectively the same as the stage show, and took the form of televised lectures, in which he explained what he had done. The six episodes were directed by Pati Marr. Later, after the TV series was broadcast, a book entitled Are You Dave Gorman? was written by Gorman and Wallace. Once the TV show existed Gorman stopped touring the show in the UK, instead taking it to several overseas festivals and later running the show for three months off-Broadway - a run which saw him appearing as a guest on the Late Show with David Letterman. Two Australian soap operas have named fictional characters Dave Gorman as an in-joke and the comedian has been bombarded with so many e-mails about it that he has had to publicly appeal to people to stop sending him details of other Dave Gormans. The show was released on DVD on 19 February 2007 under the title Are You Dave Gorman?. It is, however, only available to buy from his website and on Recordstore.
