YOU'RE FOUR SERIES IN NOW – IS IT DIFFICULT TO FIND NEW MATERIAL?
We always start looking into it, going, 'Bloody hell, how are we going to do this?' and then by the end of the first couple of days [think], 'Oh it's all right, there's plenty'. The show is called Modern Life Is Goodish and whether life is getting goodish or not, I don't know, but it's definitely getting more modern. There are always new things that affect us all and the way we live.
YOU'VE USED EVENTS IN YOUR OWN LIFE AS INSPIRATION, HAVEN'T YOU?
Yes, the show has charted life events of mine, most of them quite small. When I started making the series, I wasn't a car driver and then I bought a car, and that sparked some material. We got a cat, we moved house, all these things have informed the show one way and another.
YOU'RE ALSO A DAD NOW, AREN'T YOU?
Yes, in between this series and last series we had a kid, so obviously that opens up new opportunities and observations. But I thought, 'No, we're not going to do stuff about changing nappies and being exhausted' – everyone's already heard dozens of comics talk about all that. There is an episode that starts with examining baby name books. You read baby name books and go, 'How can these people claim to be authors of books when they've written 800 words about what Kanye and Kim called their kid and then copied and pasted a list that existed somewhere on the internet?' Just a ridiculous industry.
YOU TWEETED THAT YOUR SON IS THE BEST PERSON IN THE WORLD. I TAKE IT THAT'S STILL TRUE?
He's a joy. I adore him. Everyone says this about their own child, obviously, but he just seems ridiculously smart and funny. You end up in social groups with other people who are just becoming parents at the same time as you and we're so lucky. He's just such a good-natured boy, he's a little happy person whose first thing in the morning is a laugh. And in a way, we've had it easy because there are others whose first thing in the morning is a wail.
DOES HE WEAR CHECKED SHIRTS LIKE YOU?
Yes, although we didn't buy him any of them, it was the present that everyone thought was their original idea. He has dozens, because people just keep giving them to him.
HOW MANY CHECKED SHIRTS DO YOU HAVE IN YOUR COLLECTION?
It isn't that many, but I am aware that I've worn one in every episode, and they've always been different. So it's at least 28. It's a lot, but you end up giving into it.
ARE YOU STILL APPROACHED BY OTHER PEOPLE WHO ARE CALLED DAVE GORMAN?
Occasionally. Not so much anymore. It's faded away largely. At one point, it was happening every week or two. I think there's some exhibit at Reading jail and some Victorian prisoner is called David Gorman, so two or three times in the last month people have Tweeted me pictures of that. They probably would have done if I'd never done [stage show and book] 'Are You Dave Gorman?'
WHAT'S YOUR FAVOURITE THING ABOUT MODERN LIFE?
That's a very big question. I don't know if it's a good thing, but it's a thing I really like and then, at times, I wish it wasn't the case. There are so many things in the past that I would have been walking along the street and gone, 'I wonder why that is the way it is', and just walked on. Now, I'm able to look it up immediately. I'm slightly obsessive and I end up hoarding little facts... I love the accessibility of information; if you're curious, it just feeds you.
DO YOU EVER SWITCH OFF, OR ARE YOU ALWAYS LOOKING FOR INSPIRATION?
I do switch off. At the start of the series, they sort of lock me in a room with a couple of mates and go, 'Right, what's happened?' and I start unpacking the last few months since the last series and working a few things out. But I don't spend the time between one series and the next with a notepad. I do switch off. It's just when you start work, you have to unlock your brain and think, 'What was that thing that annoyed you?' I don't spend my life boring my wife with it.
:: Dave Gorman: Modern Life Is Goodish airs on Tuesday nights on Dave
