EVER since his 2003 show, book and DVD Googlewhack Adventure, Dave Gorman’s comedy has been synonymous with cutting edge technology.

But the presenter of Modern Life Is Goodish and writer of new book Too Much Information believes he shouldn’t be the only comic tackling the subject.

“We need to be talking about technology, it’s part of our experience like talking about getting a cup of coffee,” he says.

“There’s this weird thing telly does where they talk about the internet as if they need to tell viewers what it is. There was a show which broadcast a YouTube clip of a foreign prison doing the Thriller routine.

“It had already been seen by 50 million people and they’re a show that’s seen by one million viewers – if they’re lucky – saying: ‘Look at what we’ve found for you.’ “We’ve all seen it! It’s been around for three weeks!”

It is these sorts of considerations which form part of his new book – which has as its full title Too Much Information (or Can Everyone Just Shut Up For A Moment, Some Of Us Are Trying To Think).

“It isn’t a narrative,” he explains. “It’s thoughts on lots of different topics and areas. We spend so long running, trying to keep up with the world we don’t notice so much of it. This is me trying to say: ‘Stop, look around you, what the f*** is all this?’”

The stand-up show covers similar ground to the book – although augmented by Gorman’s Powerpoint presentation, an element which was first present in his storytelling show Googlewhack Adventure.

“Before Googlewhack Adventure I used old fashioned slide projection and an overhead projector to give evidence for the story,” he says.

He moved onto Powerpoint when he needed to get screengrabs for his Googlewhack Adventure – the challenge which saw him meet an unbroken chain of ten internet users from across the world. They were linked through Googlewhacks – websites which had appeared as single results on Google through inputting a random pair of words.

“Printing out the screengrabs onto acetate and putting them on an overhead projector was so wilfully not the way to do it. It would have looked like the pages were from 1975.

“With Powerpoint you can press a button and the joke is on the screen. It’s easier than pulling out one sticky acetate from a pile of sticky acetates, you can time it to pinpoint accuracy.”

With those advantages perhaps it is a surprise Gorman didn’t think to incorporate it into his stand-up sooner, although there was a long gap between Googlewhack – which he now describes as a comedy show about having a breakdown – and his return to the stage after the gruelling three-year international tour.

“I took about five years off,” he says. “At the end of 2005, just before Christmas, I had just finished the tour, I’d been diagnosed with a nodule in my throat, I was a stone lighter than I should have been and I hadn’t been home for four months. I thought ‘I don’t know what I’m doing any more!’.”

Added to that was the pressure for a follow-up to the Googlewhack Adventure – with some agents even suggesting he do a pretend sequel.

Gorman eventually returned to his first love – stand-up – and through incorporating Powerpoint found a way of marrying the comic techniques of his old storytelling shows with new stand-up material.

“It was probably pretty obvious to other people that it was something I could do,” he says. “I needed to be able to show people stuff so they could come with me on a journey.”

Just because he’s using Powerpoint doesn’t mean he is pandering to his audience or deliberately making his stand-up easier to swallow for shorter attention spans.

“There’s a self-fulfilling prophecy that people have a short attention span so we mustn’t give people something that lasts too long,” he says.

“If you give an audience something bite-size it’s a snack, not a meal, so they don’t settle.

“With something more substantial they will settle more than if they’re watching something which changes every 30 seconds.”

Dave Gorman: Gets Straight To The Point (Powerpoint)
Brighton Dome Concert Hall, Church Street, Saturday, October 11

  • Starts 8pm, tickets £20. Call 01273 709709.