Funny Talk

"I hope you've taken something away from this, learned some valuable lessons today. "Never work at Argos." I think it applies to everyone. Especially those who work in Argos.

Danny Wallace worked in Argos in 1994 and does not intend to go back. Anyone who has heard of him will no doubt know that there's no real danger that he ever need return. Having founded Comedy Review Magazine, Danny has gone on to write for a number of national papers, has co-written a book and a TV show and further on to produce some of the best contemporary radio comedy shows of the 90s and early noughties. And that's not all. He was recently named as the Patron Saint of Comedy Lounge. "When I first heard about the whole thing I don't mind telling you that a few tears were shed - of joy, naturally." There's no need for sarcasm.

Born Daniel Wallace back in 1976, at the age of 13 Danny was somewhat addicted to computer games but being of such a tender age, he found he had to save up his pocket money for weeks before he could afford to buy himself a new game to play. He soon discovered that where he was living in Bath, there was a publishing house responsible for a video games magazine so the cheeky young scamp "just sort of blagged my way in." Once having weedled his way in, Danny did all the rubbish jobs for the "twenty-something video game hacks" to make their lives easier and when one of them was caught ill, Danny got to write his first ever review. "So I just started writing for all these video games magazines which was brilliant fun, and all of a sudden I was getting free games all the time."

At the age of around 15 or 16 Danny attended his first comedy gig. The performer was John Shuttleworth and Danny sat in the audience not really understanding what was going on but crying with laughter. "I just wept. There's a man on the stage and he's pretending to be someone else, and he's being really funny all the time, and he's not making it up but he is..." And from then on he was hooked.

"I did performing and stuff when I was a kid, and I did theatre stuff and wrote plays, but no, I'm not going to be tootling on down to the Chuckle Club just yet."

When Danny reached the age of 18, the idea for a comedy magazine presented itself and Danny was plucked from Nintendo obscurity to write about comedy full time. To its loyal readership, Comedy Review was a monthly gift from the comedy gods but after five short months it folded. "So the dream collapsed." Desperate readers all over the country were frantically calling the helpline asking where their copies of the sixth shiny issue were and why their subscription cheques had been returned in the post.

"We wanted to do a magazine where you took comedy seriously, and you didn't try to be ridiculously funny about it. You just wrote about it in a not analytical way, but just that you were enjoying it, but were also going to say why you were enjoying it. You're not just going to do the Deadpan thing where you just go - that bloke's hilarious, and I drank 18 pints!" This format was a hit with the readers from day one but according to Danny, there were some unfavorable decisions made on behalf of the writers. "We were thinking - comedy magazine - let's sell it in places where they have comedy, and student places and let's sell it cheaply so that people can actually afford it, and let's actually take advertisements rather than turning people down because they're not posh enough, which is what our advertising department decided to do." It finally made it onto the shelves in March 1996 at £3 an issue and had a glossy cover which meant that if you liked it, you'd like it even more, but if you didn't like it, you'd buy Deadpan instead. "I'm glad you liked it," Danny tells us.

The sixth issue we were all waiting for had a big section about Edinburgh, a free tape and had a competition in which readers could win a trip and tickets to the festival. And Danny was even going to publish a letter he had received from Bill Hicks's mum but, alas, it was not to be. "Oh, it was amazing! And we'd written it all, we'd written the whole thing." Further along in the pipeline was the first major interview Ben Elton had given in ages, an interview with Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson and infinite other ideas. "It is heart breaking. I went out and got very drunk that night. I think everyone was quite confused by why it closed. I wish it could have gone on."

Since then, Danny has gone onto produce numerous radio series featuring amongst others, Tony Hawkes, the Boosh and Ross Noble and is currently working on ideas with Dara O'Brien and Dan Antopolski. The series that Danny produced with the Boosh, about the adventures of Vince Noire and Howard Moon, won the Douglas Adams award. Written by Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt, much of the series was recorded in a small disused disco in Shoreditch in a four man tent in the dark because the light bulb made too much noise. "It was brilliant doing that series, because it really felt like we were in the 50s or something and then taking the 95 million hours worth of stuff and choosing the best sentences from each of them." It's a tough job, but Danny is the ideal man for it. He recently produced "Ross Noble Goes Global" which in this case was Danny not only working with a friend, but getting paid to travel as far as China, Capetown and Singapore. All for a radio show.

For some reason some people have treated this as a comedy. When it's actually the story of a very tragic period in my life.

Danny is clearly a luckier man than most in that the majority of the projects he works on are with friends. Not to detract from the achievements he has made but how many of us have the bonus of working with the people we hang out with? If you're not happy in your job, look away now! "It's not work at all, it's brilliant. It is just great, just sitting around with your mate and not quite believing that you actually get paid for it."

Following from the success of "The Dave Gorman Collection", Danny and Dave have a TV series commission but are keeping quiet as to what theie loyal public can expect. "We've got a plan that we were talking about last night, but that's really only a plan that we had last night, and as always happens it'll probably be a rubbish idea tomorrow when we actually think about it." They are keeping it very much under their hats at the moment, not that we'd dream of telling anyone. "I can tell you that when it comes out, if it works, there is not going to be one person on this entire planet who will not benefit from the outcome. Whether they watch the show or not." That's got to be a hard promise to keep and now expectations are even higher. Danny will be in the new show but essentially will be co-producing and co-writing it with Dave. "It's not like a me and my flatmate thing because why would you do that when you've got a TV commission? That's something you do when you're pissed." And for that reason Danny suggests they have roped in celebrities to join in and are making it in front of a large live studio audience. (For info about tickets and to see what the show is going to be about go to the Free Tickets section).

Hot on the heels of the first TV series came the book "Are You Dave Gorman?" which has currently sold over 25,000 copies (several of those to comedy lounge staff, family and friends). The mass market edition comes out in July and the publishers are hoping to sell a lot more. The first run was 35,000 copies and the new cover is far more colourful and shiny so avid fans may even stretch to a second copy. The new cover features Danny and Dave playing a specially commissioned Dave Gorman and Danny Wallace set of Guess Who? "They're going to forward it on and I did trick my friend in to believing that they were releasing Dave and Danny Guess Who, despite the fact that you'd go 'Is it Dave?' 'No.' 'Is it Danny?' Yes.'"

Separate from his work with Dave Gorman, Danny intends to write another book. And in true Danny and Dave style he doesn't trust us enough to tell us what it's going to be about. "It will be about secret things. It will be about new, different exciting things." So there you have it, a comedy lounge scoop - you heard it here first. "It's going to be true life. It's very weird writing that sort of thing, because people know a lot about you and they feel like they live in your flat, and they know stuff about you, and they'll mention some weird little thing that you just tucked away in a book, and they'll just go - 'So did Hanne mind that thing happening with the pencil case?', and I'll go 'What?! How do you know about that?' and they'll say 'it's on page 234!'" So it'll be autobiographical, but Danny tells us it'll be another adventure, this time inspired by his great uncle Gallas from Switzerland. So we're all still very much in the dark then.

Two of the five original name changers have taken up stand-up. 'The Dave Gormen' could be a three man comedy sketch troupe, with Dave Gorman. I pray that doesn't happen.

The future is bright for Danny Wallace. He has his very own unofficial fan Club ("We Quite Like Danny Wallace"), comedians queuing up to work with him and the respect of the comedy-loving public across the country. The yahoo club dedicated to quite liking Danny has been running since around the time when The Dave Gorman Collection was broadcast on BBC2 and has around 28 members, "I think one of them is Dave under a pseudonym, but that's an army in my book. It's a proper gang. Not a particularly close one, because they only quite like me, but a gang nevertheless and that will do for now." And he's not too upset that they've chosen to only quite like him. "I think that's better than we *love* DW - it's more sincere. At least they mean it. They might ignore me in a pub. They wouldn't make the effort to come round my house on my birthday. They send me nice things."

But despite having met at least 100 more Dave Gormans in such a short time than anyone would ever want to meet during their lifetime, Danny has no urge to seek out and meet any of his own namesakes. He was frequently taunted by the kids at his school for sharing a name with Danny Wallace the footballer which prompted some of them to stupidly ask whether he was Danny's brother. "They used to go on about it despite the fact that he is considerably older than me, he's black, and he's also called Danny Wallace. How much must my parents have loved the name Danny to give it to both their children? Unless I'm adopted. Because my parents are black. Now I think about it..." They clearly didn't think it through.

One of the more bizarre offers following the hunt for Dave Gormans include the possibility of a broadway musical featuring 54 men dancing on a stage singing carious songs which Danny and Dave were to write. "'I'm from East Fife, have you met my lovely wife?' That kind of thing. We should write that actually. That could be something secret for us to do tomorrow and not tell you about."

Tickets to Danny and Dave's new series
www.dannywallace.com
www.davegorman.com
www.tvrecordings.com