Comedy gold – Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure

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Title: Dave Gorman's Googlewhack Adventure

Year: 2004

The set-up: There are not many performers who can claim to have created a new genre of live comedy. In fact, if you constructed a pie chart dividing comedians into gagsmiths and inventors of docucomedy – shows based on ridiculous pseudo-scientific quests – Dave Gorman would arguably have the latter slice to himself. In the late 90s, the Staffordshire-born standup made a splash with Are You Dave Gorman? – in which he travelled the world trying to find namesakes. Around the same time, Tony Hawks dragged a fridge around Ireland for a wager, but it was Gorman who popularised the idea of telling his stories on stage, complete with PowerPoint presentation and obligatory aforementioned pie charts. Since then, Tim FitzHigham has attempted to sail to France in a bath, Richard Herring has updated the 12 Labours of Hercules and "Gormanesque" has become journalistic shorthand for umpteen Edinburgh festival fringe gigs based on ludicrous follies utilising a pointer and a MacBook. Apple must love Gorman.

And Gorman is certainly very lovable. He has an open manner and a way of making friends quickly that helps on stage as well as on his journeys. In Googlewhack Adventure, he darts around the world meeting people whose websites are googlewhacks – meaning they are the only sites that ping up when two random words are searched for, ie "termagant holbein" or "rarebit nutter". The bearded anecdotalist is a cross between Phileas Fogg and Luke Rhinehart's Dice Man as he pinballs around the planet, meeting creationists in California and vintage car enthusiasts in Wales, constantly approaching strangers ("I'm sure my mum told me not to do that sort of thing"). Remarkable coincidences and surprising connections help him on his way: "It's like I've summoned the Googlewhack genie."

Funny, how? This is not just a standup show but an emotionally involving yarn with a narrative arc imposed by the looming deadline of his 32nd birthday. Maybe not a big deal now, but a decade ago the idea of a quasi-theatrical monologue like this seemed revolutionary in the comedy world. Gorman, however, didn't embark on his 91,000-mile adventure to create a show; he did it because he wanted to avoid writing the novel he'd been paid to write. He was 31. He had a beard. He was a grown-up. But he drank too much tequila on New Year's Eve, made a drunken bet, and was hooked.

Gorman is an accomplished comic – his last tour was more conventional, though still used PowerPoint – but there are few quotable lines to amuse your pub mates here. You have to buy into the whole piece to appreciate the humour. "Most comedy shows don't have a plot, but this is a real story," he tells his audience at the end, when he begs them not to reveal the twists. The laughs come from the bizarre situations, the unexpected scrapes and, most importantly, Gorman's gift of the gab. He speeds things up, slows things down, introduces high drama and low farce and keeps the narrative moving with his mix of goodhearted positivity and self-mockery. The result is riveting. He knows his trek is an absurd way to spend one's time, but at least it means he can avoid writing the work of fiction he has been commissioned to write. It is all true, he emphasises: "If I was good at making things up, I'd have written a fucking novel."

Comic cousins: Danny Wallace, Tony Hawks, Mark Thomas, Tim FitzHigham, Morgan Spurlock.

Steal this: "I was hungry and nothing was open. Finally I found a 24-hour garage and ended New Year's Day eating a Pot Noodle with a toothbrush."