Since September last year I've been doing a monthly show -
Dave Gorman's Screen Guild - at Hoxton Hall.
This is the second run of Screen Guild shows I've done there. The idea of the shows is that it gives me a place to try out any new ideas I might have on stage with an audience.
It's turned out to be an invaluable exercise. Knowing there's a show each month forces me to write and be creative. And a lot of what's come out of it has been really useful.
When I first started a run there, back in February 2011 I didn't know what I wanted to do, I just knew I had some ideas I wanted to play with.
But by the end of that run all the component pieces of what was to become Powerpoint Presentation pretty much existed and I was on my way to the Edinburgh Fringe for the first time in 8 years with a show I would end up touring extensively. There simply wouldn't have been another way of building that show up.
I started this second run in a similar place. I didn't know where I was going with it... but a new store of ideas had built up and I needed to get back on stage and play some more. Now, as the run draws to a close (there's actually one more show in the season - next Saturday - but it's sold out) it's time to take stock and work out what to do with all the material I've built up.
So I've got some one man shows lined up in small venues that aren't too far from home. I didn't want to keep the name Screen Guild, as that might make someone think it's a mixed bill rather than a one man show, so these shows are called Dave Gorman's Screen Build instead. Well, they had to be called something. There's a reason the shows are all relatively close to home - it's because, when I'm building up a show of some kind I like to put the material through a sort of bootcamp - trying it one way, one night and then another way the next and so on. That means I spend the day in between hunched over a laptop, changing the powerpoint and that means I can't spend the day travelling across country to a different venue. Which is why the shows are clustered the way they are.
I'll be trying out the first batch of material in shows on May 9th, 10th and 13th. Those shows happen in
Windsor,
Windsor and
Fareham respectively. The next batch of material I'll try out on May 23rd, 24th and 27th. All of those shows are in
Windsor. And finally I'll try out a different batch of material on June 5th, 6th and 10th... and all of those shows will be in
Tring.
All the details are on the
Live Dates page of my site...