Tonight! 10pm! BBC2!

The final episode of Genius goes out tonight. 10pm. BBC2. The title for this entry was your clue.

Here's a preview clip:


As you can see, Stewart Lee is the guest. I think Stewart might well be the finest live stand-up in the country. If you've seen his recent BBC2 series you'll know just how smart and clever he is. It was certainly a real pleasure to work with him.

He was a guest on the first series of the radio show too. Because the show was brand new back then people were sometimes suspicious of the format, perhaps thinking it was a combative show (in which case, bringing in members of the public to spar with a professional comic would be ridiculous) but Stewart saw that they were the heroes of the piece straight away.

"This is bound to go to TV soon," said Stew, "can I come back and do it again if it does?"
"If it does, we'd love to have you," said I.

And four years later we did just that. It's nice when the world works. Fab.

This Friday!

We had to take a week off over Easter because of the golf. But we're back on Friday the 17th and in a novel twist we appear to be on at the same time in all the regions! How refreshing. 10pm. Friday. BBC2. With Johnny Vegas. Hope you can catch it.

Genius 3

One of the things I've always insisted on with Genius is that we don't only rely on comedians to be the guests. Having a few in each series is fine but we should be confident enough with the format to know that it will still be a funny show whether or not our guest is a professional comic.

I also love it when the guest has enough years on the clock to mean they're invested with some believable wisdom. All of which means that this weeks' guest: Jonathan Pryce was right up my street.

It's nice when someone else recognises there's some merit in these thoughts. This weeks' Time Out has (another) nice piece about the show:
...Genius is so pointlessly silly that it remains enjoyable, and the celebrity guests are deftly chosen. Actor Jonathan Pryce leaps headfirst into every given situation, presenting the weather forecast in regional accents and advertising a new, symmetrical Isle of Wight that's better for tourism...

It was properly exciting for me having someone as well regarded as Jonathan Pryce in the chair.
He's a Bond villain. He's in Pirates of the Caribbean. He's the star of Brazil; one of the best films ever. And he was a brilliant Genius guest. Completely in the spirit of the show. Funny funny, but also funny simply for taking the ideas quite so seriously. A real star.

Incidentally... I see that Piers Morgan managed to get a half page in The Sun for saying that he's banned David Beckham from his chat show. How the hell did that happen? Do you think David Beckham was ringing up begging to be on the show? No. If the show had asked him do you think he'd have said yes? No. You can't ban someone from doing something they were never going to do anyway. It's completely meaningless.

It's almost as if Piers Morgan has some uncanny knack for understanding the tabloid agenda... although quite how the former tabloid editor would learn that sort of thing is beyond me.

Still, half a page in the Sun is not to be sniffed at. So as host of Genius let me tell you that Nelson Mandela is banned from the show. As is Bill Clinton. And I'm banning Angelina Jolie from my bedroom too. And Madonna is absolutely 100% forbidden from adopting me.

Glad I cleared that up. Something else which needs clarifying is the schedule for Genius. If you're in England or Scotland it's on tonight (Friday) at the regular time of 10pm. If you're in Northern Ireland however this week's show has been moved to a different time. It's on Friday night... but so late as to be Saturday morning: 35 minutes past midnight. Thanks Northern Ireland schedulers... what have we ever done to you? In Wales the show doesn't even have a regular time. Three weeks running and the show's been on at a different time on each occasion. The first week we were moved to Saturday night. Then for week two it was on the Friday night like everyone else. Now this week, we're back to being a day later than the other regions and twenty minutes earlier. Wales: 9.40pm. Saturday. Criminy... 10pm on Friday was meant to be a great slot... I had no idea how much the regions were going to screw us around. But enough of the harumphing... it's a good'un, enjoy!

Oh... by the way, I'm getting a lot of e-mails (and Tweets and the like) from people with Genius ideas. I'm the worst possible person to send them to. I'm an idiot. I'm disorganised. I remember that we had an idea but I lose the e-mail. Or I forward the e-mail but we don't get a phone number for you and then when we try to get in touch your e-mail address fails and we're left with nothing else. That's no use to anyone. You really have a far better chance of getting your idea in the hat by sending it in via the show's website: bbc.co.uk/genius Go on. You know it makes sense. Sort of.

Or not so soon, depending on where you live...

It was only when I read the comments to my last post that I discovered Genius has been scheduled differently in Northern Ireland and in Wales.

So actually, the schedule is as follows:
England/Scotland: BBC2, Friday, 10pm
Northern Ireland: BBC2, Friday, 11.35pm
Wales: BBC2, Saturday, 10pm.

The Lyric, Newcastle & Lincoln

It's been a busy week. On Monday I was doing Frank Skinner's Credit Crunch Cabaret at The Lyric Theatre. I was a little bit concerned to be closing the show. The brilliant Ian Broudie had closed the first half and I was pretty sure we were occupying each other's slots on the bill.

It was also the first time I've ever had to follow a burlesque act (the really quite delightful, Missy Malone) but having dipped my toe back in the stand-up waters late last year and enjoyed myself and now having committed to an autumn tour... well, I guess it was time for a proper test. And a thousand people in a proper old West End Theatre is as good a way as any to find out where you are. I loved it. Those theatres are so much fun to play. I even sorted out a tiny bit of new material too. Hurrah.

(Of course, I do realise that nobody's reading this bit. I've invoked Blogging Rule #28: if you link to a burlesque dancer's site, don't expect anyone to read the rest of what you have to say. Oh well.)

I went out to celebrate after which proved to be a bit of a mistake because I felt the effects on Tuesday when I had to head to Newcastle for the next America Unchained book event.

As well as promoting the book I've been promoting the imminent arrival of Genius on TV and as part of that I've been writing a couple of newspaper articles on the subject. I was under the impression that one of them had to be delivered by the close of play on Friday... but late on Monday I discovered that the deadline had moved to Thursday which threw my plans out of whack somewhat.

Instead of spending Monday afternoon prepping for the gig at The Lyric I devoted it to writing but by the time I had to leave for the theatre the work wasn't done. I had Genius related interviews all Thursday so I knew I wouldn't have a chance to do any of it then and the Friday morning I'd set aside for the task was no longer of any use to me. So I took my laptop with me on the train to Newcastle and tried to get as much of it done as possible then. And a hangover - even though it was only a slight one - wasn't the best accompaniment to that.

I knew there wouldn't be time to finish it on the journey but I was pleased to get a sizeable chunk done. But it left me feeling frazzled and fragile when we got to the shop in Newcastle. The staff there were great though and there was a lovely crowd who were really up for it so I got a bit of an adrenaline kick and the reading ended up being really good fun.

It would have been lovely to spend a bit of time in Newcastle. In an ideal world I'd have brought my "proper" camera with me and set out into the darkness with a tripod to do some late night photography because the city's architecture and liveliness would be great for some night-shooting. Instead I headed straight back to the hotel to watch the football (glorious) and continue the writing (headachey) and contented myself with pointing my point-and-shoot snapper out of the hotel window instead.


The schedule that was laid out for the next day meant that the article simply had to be finished that night or I'd miss the deadline so I worked on, finally finishing it at 3am.

Wednesday was already set to be an especially long and arduous day, but now, with a distinct lack of sleep it was only going to feel harder. I was doing another reading that day - this time in Lincoln - but the book's publicist and the Genius publicist had conspired to ensure I had seven or eight appointments to make before that. I did stock signings - which means I signed books but not as part of any event - in two Gateshead shops and two more in York as well as doing various phone interviews and popping into a local radio station along the way. It was one of those frustratingly bitty days where there was never a significant enough break in the schedule, just the odd twenty minutes here or there so that, apart from the hotel breakfast, there was never time to have an actual meal and we (that's me and Ed Publisher by the way) survived on snacks and sandwiches all day.

The magic recipe of a warm welcome and an engaged and interested crowd meant the dose of adrenaline was administered and the Lincoln event was just as much fun as the one in Newcastle. (The fact that all four recent events have been so different - thanks to the Q&A sessions - is what really makes these events enjoyable to me)

But the moment I came off stage (or rather, off-shop-floor) I felt my energy dying completely. Lincoln must be one of the few British cities I've never visited before and I really didn't know what to expect of it. It looked beautiful. But as with Newcastle there was no chance to really appreciate it... this time because my Thursday schedule of Genius-related interviews meant I had to be back in London for the morning.

Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be a direct rail connection between Lincoln and London and there certainly wasn't a railway route back home at that time of night so instead we had the extravagance of a car home. My head didn't say hello to the pillows til the wee small hours.

Five hours sleep followed by three train journeys, five cars, four stock signings, three interviews, one reading and no meals. That's not good. And at 10 the next morning I was in the centre of town for more interviews.

I think I slept for much of Friday. Instead of spending the day writing the article - as originally planned - I spent it recovering from the lack of sleep endured as a result of writing it on Tuesday night. Which should mean that everything kind of balances out in the end. But three nights without decent sleep followed by one long day of rest never quite does that does it?

When Genius Comes To Life

Hosting Genius means I get to hear an awful lot of very silly ideas. I love the ingenuity that we find in the Genius inbox but it goes without saying that they generally aren't the kind of ideas you ever expect to see in real life.

But then last weekend I did. Sort of.

It's a fishtank/toilet cistern - an idea we discussed in one of the radio shows some time ago.

If I remember the idea was supposed to have two benefits. 1) you no longer have to change the fishes' water because that happens whenever you flush. 2) as the water empties the fish panic and swim against the tide only to be reprieved when the water level rises once more: thus receiving exercise and excitement. Hmmm. I can't remember which show it was in so I've no idea what the Guest Genius made of it.

Anyway... this example (it's in a bar on Broadway Market) is purely cosmetic - the fish tank is mounted directly in front of the cistern and isn't really affected by the flush... but even so... it was a pleasant surprise to see something that manages to be utterly strange and utterly familiar at the same time.

Moments later I saw a man walking his pet miniature elephant down the road but I failed to get a picture of that.

Incidentally... I spent part of last week making trails and stuff for Genius so I expect I'll have a broadcast date for you soon. Ish. I'll be sure to let you know...

Seasons Greetings...

Right... I expect this'll be my last post for a little while. I didn't have Christmas last year. I'd missed several deadlines on my book, had torn up a big section and started again and so I decided to stay at home, ignore the festivities and work. I say 'decided'... I didn't have much choice. I got up on the 25th and worked from 7am through to 4am stopping only to call my folks and to make - and consume - a butternut squash risotto. It was quite definitely the least Christmassy Christmas of my life.

I did do another Christmas by myself. I was in New York doing an Off-Broadway run of Googlewhack Adventure at the time. There was no show on Thanksgiving because, quite rightly, every American stops for Thanksgiving... but the same isn't true for Christmas and so the show went ahead. It was sold out as well. The audience was almost exclusively Jewish save for two British tourists and a guy who'd had a row with his wife. I had a Chinese takeaway for my lunch that day and then went to work... but it was still a damn site more cheerful than last year's Stakhanovite non-festivities. (Yes, I do know that writing can never be truly Stakhanovite in nature... forgive me... indulge me...)

Anyway, it's satisfying to look back on the year and feel that the work I was doing twelve months ago was worth it. The book did really well and as a result, I think there's a new cheap and cheerful edition coming out in the spring. Hurrah.

And this time round I've got all my work wrapped up and ready before Christmas so I'm able to stop and enjoy. The telly version of Genius is all boxed and ready. I don't know exactly when it'll be on air... probably springtime too. Obviously, I'll be sure to let you folks know as and when.

Of course there's a Christmas Special on Radio 4 on Monday at 6.30. How that recording has been wrestled down to thirty minutes I'll never know. But it has and I think it sounds great. I hope you can catch it.

Now... as I sometimes use this space to grumble about things I thought it would be more festive to mention a few things I really like instead. So rather than mither about the poor service I had out of Apple recently, let me recommend All Things Mac instead. This is only any good to you if you live in the South East of England and you're a Mac user (so that's about three of you) but they were fab. They were friendly and helpful and went out of their way to give me advice that saved me money and earned themselves nought. They could have solved my problem and made a few quid... instead they chose to give advice and not make a penny. Of course I'll be using them again as a result and I think they're smart enough to know that longterm customer loyalty is worth more than a few quid now.

Here's something else I recommend. Gold by Dan Rhodes. I love Dan Rhodes and this book - which had sat unread on my shelf for yonks - is up there with his best. It's just utterly charming. It's elegant, delicate, wry and absorbing writing. (I loved The Little White Car too and it's just occurred to me that both books have female protagonists... which strikes me as unusual for a male author. Mind you, I'm not sure why that it is. Noone thinks it odd when a woman like JK Rowling puts a male character at the heart of things do they? And no one even bats an eyelid when a computer programme like DanBrown2.0 attempts to put a human being into its "stories". Hmmm.)


I recommended this album, Television's People
back in October too... but it really is fab so I'm doing it again. Grandmaster Gareth - the driving force behind Misty's Big Adventure - did me a huge favour by writing a special song for an extra on the Are You Dave Gorman DVD and I'm thrilled that they've now done the theme music for the TV version of Genius too. It's such a ridiculous thrill being able to work with a band that I'm a huge fan of. What a silly and exciting world this is. Anyway, I can't recommend them highly enough.

Talking of bands I'm a big fan of and who have written songs for my DVD extras - and I think you'll find I was - this Helen Love album, It's My Club And I'll Play What I Want To, came out back in February this year. They're fab. It's fab. I love Helen Love and you should too. What's that, you say? You do? Oh. Great!

Right, that's a book and two CDs... so here's a DVD. It's from Robin Ince who is one of the finest live comedians I know. Not only is he a brilliant writer and performer himself, Robin is one of the unsung heroes of comedy - or at least a not-sung-about-enough-hero. He curates fabulous nights in strange venues and has gone out of his way to foster a creative environment that allows comedy to expand beyond the rather rigid boundaries imposed on it by most pub-bound circuit-gigs which, while perfectly good in and of themselves, only really allow for a procession of gag-merchants with 20 minutes a piece. The comedy world is hugely enriched by his presence. The DVD is released by a company called Go Faster Stripe who specialise in promoting comedians they love but who aren't necessarily going to have their work advertised all over TV at Christmas or on a rack at the front of HMV. If you're really interested in live, UK comedy, you'd do well to peruse their catalogue... there's some fascinating stuff there.

Crikey... look at that for unbounded positivity! It's all stuff that has made my life more colourful and enjoyable one way or another and even if none of this is for you - I don't know, you might be a PC user who doesn't live in the South East and who hates whimsy, elegance, beauty, charm, wit, excitement, flair and anything thought-provoking - well, the wider lesson is surely that somewhere out there, there is stuff that will excite you as much as this stuff excites me. Seek it out. Then tell your friends.

To round things off - and to add a seasonal note - here's an old video I found on youtube from the aforementioned Misty's Big Adventure. It asks the question we've all wanted to ask before: Where do jam jars go at Christmas time?


Happy Christmas!

Time to fall over.

We recorded the Genius Christmas Special last night... in what turned out to be a marathon recording.

I think we ran nearly an hour longer than our normal shows... and I'm aware that my energy levels were dropping by the end of the night.

I thought it was a more rambunctious show than normal but all of the punters were great, as was our special guest, Lee Mack... and the diversity of the ideas was lovely too. It should definitely make for a fine show... but I wouldn't fancy being the one who has to cut it down to thirty minutes. You can judge for yourself when the show airs on Radio 4 at 6.30 on December 22. (It's repeated on the Sunday after Christmas too.)

I've spent the last two or three weeks trying to shake off an annoyingly persistent cold. I tend to get better as the day goes on... but then wake up each morning feeling like I'm back to square one. My normal reaction to a cold is to exercise. I like to tell my body that I'm here and I'm fighting... so I've been cycling to Genius HQ each morning. Someone who seems to know what they're talking about has recently told me that it's the wrong thing to do and that it lowers the immune system... but by the end of a five mile bike ride I feel so much better than I do after cooping myself up on the tube so I keep doing it.

There was one day last week when I did a morning in the office, an afternoon at home, a gig (yes, my experiment with unadvertised, short notice, short sets of stand up is ongoing) at the Albany on Great Portland Street, another gig at The Kings Head in Crouch End, returned to the Albany to see a few friends and then returned home. I reckon that added up to something like 25 to 30 miles of cycling although the hills around Crouch End made it feel like more.

By the end of the day I was feeling the full smugness of a cyclist. Not only had I done my travelling in about the same time as the tubes and buses would have reasonably got me from A to B (to A to C to D to C to A) but the exercise left me feeling really healthy. I felt like I'd conquered my cold. My lungs were full of oxygen instead of the radioactive phlegm I'd been growing accustomed to... I really thought I'd won.

Boy did I feel shit the next morning. Wiped out. You can't win. The only thing that makes me feel better in the short term is some exercise. But the next day it seems to have made things worse. So I get on the bike once more... and feel better. Only to be worse still the next day.*

Anyway... last night's show was my last work for the year. I've been trying to fight the illness for long enough to get that out of the way. Today I feel completely wiped out so I think it might be time to give in to the cold and let it take me down. I'll emerge on the other side. Hopefully before Christmas.











*You have no idea how hard it was to resist the obvious, "it's a vicious cycle" pun.

Last Night's News... and Christmas Genius

Cor, last night was exciting wasn't it? The world feels like a different place already. It's obvious the man's a born leader.

No doubt about it... not everyone could have slotted home that 95th minute penalty, salvaging a draw and leaving Liverpool top of the group. Now... I ought to check the news and see what happened in those elections they were having in Americaland. I hope that Obama chap won. The Palin lass scares me.

Now... Christmas.

Retro Christmas, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

I know it's only early November... but these things need to be planned.

We're going to make a Genius Christmas Special for Radio 4 soon... and it would be fabbo if the show was jam packed with seasonal ideas. So if you think you might be a genius and you have an idea that relates to the festive season - whether it's Christmas, Hanukah or simply something that'll make the New Year go with a swing - then get in touch by e-mailing the show on Genius@bbc.co.uk.

If you fancy being in the audience... well, as I type this, free tickets are still available here.

The show will record on the evening of December 10th... see you there, yeah? Yeah? Great.

Genius Bowlarama

Making Genius for the wireless has largely involved a team of 6 or 7 people. For the tellybox Team Genius expanded rapidly. Suddenly we had production accountants, production coordinators, production managers, an art-department, a set-designer, a director, an executive producer or two (or three) and so on. These are all jobs that needed doing and they were all done by people that were naturally welcomed into the bosom of Team Genius.

With so many new people involved we decided early on in the production to have a night out as a bonding exercise. This was when our work was largely office-based and before we started recording the shows; before the whole working into the early hours schedule really kicked in.

So Team Genius went for a night of fun and frolics. And competitive bowling. Fun was had by all. Luckily - and I really was lucky - I won. As a reward, I was allowed to host the show. It could all have been so different; Gemma (Team Genius, Non-Bearded Division) came a very close second.

Anyway... when the series ended we wanted to have a wrap party and because various members of TG were working on other projects we had to wait until this last Friday to do it. Now that we'd been in the studio, membership of Team Genius had swelled further still as there are people who only join a production at that nuts and bolts stage. Opinions were canvassed but there was no real debate. Bowling had somehow become the official sport of Team Genius. So a second Team Genius Bowlarama was arranged.

Of course this put the pressure on me. I knew that my job was on the line. Winner = host. It's as simple as that. In the first game of Bowlarama II, Gemma (TGNBD) equalled my score but we were both left in the shade by a fine game-winning performance from Paul (TGNBD(WTF)). I knew that in the second game I had to step it up. Not only did I need to win, if I wanted to continue hosting Genius I needed to do it with a score higher than Paul's first-game-winning total.

It was a close call. It was difficult to keep track because Team Genius were spread over three lanes. It wasn't just Gemma (TGNBD) and Paul (TGNBD(WTF)) I had to worry about... a newly competitive Alison (TGNBD) was bowling well also... with her and Paul ahead of me for most of the game.

With two frames to go I was in deep trouble. If either Paul or Alison hit strikes I was out of it. And I needed not one, but two consecutive strikes to put me back in contention. I love hosting Genius. I couldn't let someone steal my job from under my nose. I dug deep. Strike. Strike.

My job is safe ladies and gentlemen... I, Dave Gorman (TGBD), am the Two-time, Team Genius Bowlarama Champeen. Get in.

Genius...

After shows three and four I said something about how every show was turning out really differently as the guests - and the people pitching their ideas - had all stamped their personalities on their respective shows.

There was no chance of the last two recordings bucking the trend as our guests were Johnny Vegas and Germaine Greer respectively. They were both on remarkably good form. There was a moment in Johnny's show when I looked across and saw people literally crying with laughter. The fact that I was experiencing no small amount of physical pain at the time wasn't unconnected. Definitely a highlight. For the audience at least.

Germaine really is a remarkable woman. She's sharp, witty, feisty, flirty and seems to have boundless energy. A real treat. The fact that she left our show and immediately skipped into the studio next door to appear on a live show - Newsnight Review - only served to underline quite how fab she is. She's a force of nature and quite, quite, brilliant.

There's always a strange low after something like this draws to a close. Making the show has occupied pretty much every waking minute of the last few weeks - and not just for me. So many people have been putting in remarkable hours to make things happen. From the outside looking in I think people imagine there's an endless pot of money in tellyland and that anything you want built will be... but obviously that's nowhere near the truth. We've had a small team working really hard with quite limited resources... tie that up with a show that is constantly evolving as the recording approaches and you don't get a show out the other side without people going the extra mile to help.

It's going to be a bit strange on Monday when I don't head to Genius HQ in the morning... and I'm going to miss working with those people. But then it's going to be nice to sleep. And to have my social life back and... and I'm going to miss working with those people.

Two thirds...

Genius seems to be happening remarkably quickly now that we've started filming them. It feels like we've only just started but we've already got four out of the six shows done. Crikey. It's exhausting... but at the same time it's giving me an adrenaline rush and I think one is cancelling the other out. I expect I'll collapse into a heap the day after the sixth show.

This Tuesday/Wednesday our guests were Stewart Lee and Frank Skinner respectively. They were both brilliant. They also, both took really different approaches to the show which is one of the things that makes the job so exciting for me... it shows no signs of ever becoming routine.

There are so many variables in a show like this. It's not just the guest genius, there are also the members of the public who pitch their ideas, and of course the ideas themselves. The end result is that every show feels really unique... while at the same time, the series seems to have a really strong identity binding it all together. I hope that comes across on screen as well as it does in the studio.

Once again, our pitchers (for want of a better word) all seemed to have a good time. On paper, Genius could have been a show that chewed people up and spat them out and I'm really proud of the fact that we don't do that. Without exception they're always really beaming at the end of the night and whether they were deemed a genius or not, they're always happy that they took part. Before the show I always tell them that they're going to enjoy it... and I can tell they don't all believe me... but afterwards they always tell me how much fun it was. Which makes it all the more fun for me.

This time next week I'll be part way through recording the fifth show... and by the end of Friday night, the series will be over. Lorks.

By the way... a few people have asked a few questions about the show... so here are the answers:
1) It'll go out early next year some time. The dates will be on my site as soon as I know them.
2) Simply because we get loads more ideas from men than we do from women. Of the ideas we receive, something like 19 out of 20 come from men. We'd love to have more female pitchers too - get thinking ladies...
3) Yup, the ideas for this series are locked and loaded... but we're always looking for more. But I'm not the person to send them to. I'm the least organised member Team Genius... so visit the Genius website instead.
4) Yes, he is real and yes, his name really is Thorin.

...5, 4, 3, 2, 1

So that's the first two recordings done and dusted. But not edited. (I think they should dust them after the edit - there'll be less to dust that way and nobody enjoys dusting, do they?)

The guests were both fab - as I knew they would be. I've always said that the guests should come from different fields and make every show feel different and we definitely got that with Catherine Tate and Jonathan Pryce. There were a couple of times during show 2, that I caught myself in the middle of doing something ridiculous with Jonathan and had to pinch myself. "He's the finest Hamlet of his generation, a Bond villain, Madonna's hubby in Evita and Keira Knightly's Dad in Pirates of the Caribbean... and now he's here doing this with me!" What a ridiculous world.

The first show was plagued by a few technical problems which really slowed things down. It took a lot longer than it should and lost some of its sense of flow on the night so I'm very grateful to the audience for staying as energised as they did. It's always a learning curve and by the second show a lot of small kinks had been ironed out of the process so we were able to make everything happen much quicker and smoother.

But perhaps the best part for me was seeing the reactions of the, for want of a better word, contestants. They're naturally nervous before the show but afterwards, regardless of whether they were declared genius or not, they all seemed elated. When I chat to them afterwards the most frequent comment is always, "I'd like to do it again. Now." It's really quite exciting to be a part of.

For the next recordings we're going to jig a few things about and add in a few more rows of seating... that way we'll be able to get a load more people in too. Hurrah for things like that.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6...

Genius is on the launch pad. We film the first episode on Tuesday and the second on Wednesday.

Face 98, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

Then it's non-stop til it's all filmed. We have some amazing guests booked. I'm looking forward to it. I have meetings on Monday. About details. I'm bored of the details. I want to get in the studio and make the thing.

Logotastic Opinions Welcomed.

According to a reliable source the office in which I'm spending most of my life right now was formerly the office occupied by Noel Edmonds when he was working on Noel's House Party. I hope some of the Edmond's magic rubs off on Genius. (Obviously I mean his telly magic, not the Cosmic Ordering "magic" stuff - that's just bonkers.)

Anyway... one of the reasons we did the run-through of a show at The Drill Hall recently was to help us test out a few things that we want to change from the one-off show we made last year. We definitely need to change the set we used for that show because it was very limiting. We want to be able to try out so many varied and different things on the show and that means we need a set that is particularly versatile.

And if we're changing the set that means it's only sensible to stop and consider whether all the visual elements are as good as they can be. So this afternoon we were talking about logos for the show. We had one on the one-off show - although it wasn't very visible on the set - but, the question was asked - could we come up with anything better. Something simple, unobtrusive... but essentially Genius.

We came up with a shortlist of ideas and argued the toss for a while before realising that we were
a) all getting a bit wordblind
and b) all too busy to spend quite that long discussing something like that.

"What we need," said one bright spark, "is to find out what some other people think. Some people who aren't as close to the show as us..."

So, in no particular order, here's our shortlist. They're only rough versions to give you an idea... although one of them is pretty much what was used on the one-off show.
Option 1:

Option 2:

Option 3:


I don't want to say too much about my own preferences because I don't want to steer you one way or the other... but if one of them grabs you... or one of them repulses you... or you think they're all duff... let me know. If you've never listened to the radio show... what would these logos make you think the show was? If you have listened, which is the best fit for the show? Let us know...

A Non-Broadcast. And A Broadcast.

On Tuesday night we ran a kind of workshop performance of Genius with a small audience at the Drill Hall in central London. The point of the show was to try out some new things and solving some of the problems that are thrown up now that we have to think about filming the show instead of just taking the sound.

We're pretty confident that we know how to best handle the heart of the show - the ideas sent to us by potential geniuses - it's the stuff around it that we needed to experiment with. But there's no way of just trying out that stuff... we obviously needed to run a proper show as well. If you were planning to build a wall and you knew what bricks you were going to use but had yet to make your mind up on the mortar... you wouldn't be able to test the mortar without using a few bricks as well.

I'm very grateful to the people who came down to pitch their ideas - especially to a couple of people who stepped in at short notice after two of our intended idea-pitching-potential-geniuses had to pull out.

We videoed proceedings so that Team Genius could review it later and see what things looked like from number of different angles. But because we were recording it we had no choice but to turn the noisy air conditioning unit off. Rarely have I performed in as uncomfortably hot space... which isn't me complaining... indeed it's the audience I felt sorry for. It's can't be easy sitting in a sauna and watching a third variation for an ending to the show you've already seen reach a satisfying conclusion. But they stuck with it and continued to give us some really valuable feedback right to the end. They really couldn't have been much nicer. (With the possible exception of one person who seemed very happy but really wanted me to be performing something he'd already seen me do 8 or 9 years ago... sigh.)

Still, it was a very satisfying night on the whole. If you came along: thanks for the feedback and sorry for the almost unbearable heat.

Team Genius spent Wednesday deconstructing what had happened. To be honest it wasn't too hard to work out which bits were going to survive and which weren't. Laughter is unequivocal like that.

Aerials, originally uploaded by Dave Gorman.

On Thursday I was just round the corner from the Drill Hall at the BBC Radio Theatre for a recording of Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive. I've done the show a couple of times before and it's always been a pleasure but this time I turned up feeling a bit underprepared.

Because I'm in production on something like Genius it starts to occupy my every waking thought. I'm in the office five days a week - and because of Tuesday's workshop I worked through the weekend too, getting the ideas straight in my head, tweaking scripts and so on. But I needn't have worried... it's such a self-assured show and the best things to come up always emerge out of the conversation anyway. In the end it didn't feel like work at all.

And the theatre was pleasantly cool too. Which was a relief.
It goes out today (Friday) at 6.30pm.

Exciting times at Genius HQ

Team Genius are waiting to hear from you.

Hello

I haven't posted anything for a while. I hadn't realised it but I think I've been on holiday. Not that I've gone anywhere - although I have popped down to the seaside briefly - just that I haven't been doing any proper work. Which has been lovely. And probably much needed too.

There are a couple of things to say... one of which is probably quite boring so I'll start with the not-boring bit. Somebody sent me a link to this clip someone has made using the sound from one of the ideas on Genius... and I really like what they've done.

Maybe this is what we should do for the TV version. Instead of making it in a TV studio, maybe we should just get them to add still pictures to the audio. I really like it.

But then again, maybe not... I think people will have a reasonable expectation that they'll be able to see the actual show. The filming dates for the series aren't finalised but I expect it to happen in September/October. I'll be sure to let my mailing list know as soon as the tickets are released.

More importantly, we need more people like Stephen Elsby of Swindon to get in touch with their ideas. We can't make a series of Genius if potential Geniuses don't send in their ideas... personally, I think everyone has a genius idea in them, so visit bbc.co.uk/genius and let us know about your particular brainwave...

Now... the boring bit.

I don't really understand how these things work but for many years there's been a forum on my website. I don't pay it an awful lot of attention but one of the things I like about it is that isn't meant to be a place for people to discuss me... it's just a place for people to chat.

But in the last few weeks it's been attacked by bots. Like I say, I don't know how these things work and with most things relating to my website my understanding expands to take in just as much as I need to know and nothing more. What I do know is that just as some people make a living by bombarding us all with spam, so some people make a living by trying to improve the visibility of their websites. I suppose that if your website sells something or makes ad revenue or whatever then the more people that find it the better. So they try to con search engines into thinking it's a more relevant page than it is by creating lots of pages full of links to their sites.

The forum I was using on my site was quite old and insecure and it meant that computer-bots could automatically sign up for accounts. Even though it needed a real life person to completely authenticate an account and post something in the forum, they could automatically get far enough to enable them to send messages to each other via the forum... and I suppose each message meant a new page of the internet existed.

So I would find these bots were signing up for 20 accounts overnight - all using e-mail addresses with Chinese domains, and then they would send hundreds of messages to each other... until the servers crashed under the weight of the activity.

I got quite good at fighting them off, blocking the IP addresses of the computers they were using and banning the domain names they were using to sign up but they would come back the next day with new domains and using different IP addresses. Mostly they were based in China or Korea but occasionally they were in the States, or Brazil or Holland or Germany...

While I could fight them off in the short term it got to the point where I was spending an hour each day tidying up after their little sorties and I simply don't know enough about the software to patch up the security holes. So eventually I had to nuke that forum and start another from a different company entirely. I'm quite amazed that I've been able to understand it sufficiently to set it up and transfer over all the existing conversations and usernames etc. So far it appears to be spam free. Famous last words.

Anyway... for those who are interested... the shiny new forum - or, as the regular users christened it - the Gorum - is here.

And with that, I'm back on holiday... which involves going to see a lot of gigs.
Two (admittedly London-centric) recommendations for your weekend:
Comedy: Todd Barry at The Soho Theatre.
Music: Dead Dog in Black Bag at the Monto Water Rats .

Book Readings... and the Tellyboxing of Genius

I fly to Galway tomorrow for the start of another week of book-readings. As well as Galway I'll be visiting Manchester, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dundee. The details/venues/etc are here. Hopefully I'll see some of you at some of them.

In the meantime... here's some rather jolly news. We made a one-off tellybox episode of Genius last year and it's no longer going to be a one-off. We're going to make a series of the show for BBC2 (as well as making more for Radio 4)

Of course, when we're going to make a new series we always need to have a fresh injection of potentially genius ideas... so get your thinking caps on and send them along. Don't post them here though and don't send them to me - I'm sure I'm the least organised member of Team Genius and I can't be trusted with important things like that. No, e-mail Team Genius at genius@bbc.co.uk (including your name and telephone number) or visit the Genius website.

Last Night's Genius

The Genius recording was a lot of fun. The nature of TV means it was a longer recording than any of the radio shows but the audience were great and stayed with it all the way. Quite right too, with such an illustrious trophy at stake.


Stephen Mangan was a superb guest. (I knew he would be because we'd met recently (at a poker table) and it was obvious then that he'd be a really good fit for the show.) As we were taking the show into a new environment it was really reassuring to have a guest that inspired 100% confidence.

More importantly we had some brilliant ideas from some brilliant people. They were all supremely confident and very ready to defend their "genius" ideas and for me, that's always what makes the show come alive.