Homepage News Reviews - Acts - Shows - Screen - Radio - Books - Clubs Interviews Awards 2006 Edinburgh 2005 - Reviews - Blog - Previews Features Archive Awards 2005 Edinburgh 2004: - Previews - Shows - Diary Guestbook Forum © Emporium Of Mirth 2004 Editor: Lauren Murphy Reporters: Fiona Wilkie Natalie Joanne	Emporium of Mirth Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure Dave Gorman is, to be frank, a bit of an oddity. To those unfamiliar with his work, he basically makes his living through drunken bets and his determination to never be proved wrong. Not many people can say that… there’s Dave, Tony Hawks and, er, that’s it. With Googlewhack, Dave has essentially written a 300 page essay on procrastination and unfortunately, I didn’t find it much more interesting than that. Maybe I had too many high hopes but Googlewhack left me feeling, well, nothing. On stage, Dave’s manner and style are engaging enough to immerse you into his world, sparking enough curiosity to make audiences chomp at the bit for the end result. On paper, however, it is a difficult read. The basic premise for the book is that, via procrastination over the writing of his novel, Dave gets sucked into a challenge to find 10 ‘Googlewhacks’ in a chain. Now a googlewhack is when you type two words into google and they only get ONE result. Not very interesting, you might think, but Dave’s wit and style does somehow keep you reading… up to a point. When Dave has a story to tell (which is most of the time) he is well worth listening to, as proved by the stage version of this story and his 2001 smash Are You Dave Gorman. The thing that strikes me, is that in his previous adventures, Dave has been in some way aided and abetted by his best friend and confidante Danny Wallace. The chemistry the pair had leapt from every page of Are You Dave Gorman, making it one of my favourite night-time reads, and I can’t help thinking it is possible that it is precisely that spark of chemistry what is missing. During the story, Dave drunkenly gets a tattoo of a Texas driving licence. Now, in the stage show this was somewhat of a highlight, with Dave begging the audiences not to reveal it. In the book, this is randomly revealed at the end of a particularly uneventful chapter and we are then taken back for him to explain How it came about. Where audiences were left reeling from the shock of his actions, readers merely shrug and say “Aah, so that’s how he got the tattoo”. and it feels like Gorman is is trying to spread out his better material for a larger portion of the book. It also makes it seem a little..well ... clunky with the constant toing and froing sometimes becoming confusing and always becoming a little frustrating. Going it alone, Dave seems much more intense, he comes across as being far, far too concerned with his quest at times even though throughout he is stressing just how pointless it is. Without someone to bounce off both in the writing, and in the quest the whole thing just feels like there is something missing and I found myself procrastinating over actually finishing reading it and, I confess, even this review has been a fantastic diversion. Reviewed by Lauren RSS  Printable version	Visit our Siamese Twin Sister Site!