Dave Gorman: Modern Life is Goodish has been cancelled after five seasons on Dave.
The British stand-up show airs its series finale December 19, 2017, with comic Dave Gorman stating the decision to axe Modern Life is Goodish boiled down to the demand of creating the show:
The first thing to say is that I love the show and I’m exceedingly proud of the last five years of work. And I’m hugely grateful to have had the opportunity to do quite so much long-form stand-up on TV.
It seems odd to me that TV largely presents stand-up as something that happens in short sets of 7 or 8 minutes – or even as a quick minute, before “we get on with the rest of the show”.
I don’t think that’s what any of my favourite comics are best at.
In terms of live work, the only times you really watch someone doing something that short is when they’re a brand new act doing unpaid gigs as they learn or, maybe, somebody more established trying a new idea out somewhere.
A standard set on the circuit is 20 minutes, a one-person show at a festival is expected to be 60 minutes and a tour show is longer.
If you can get into the position of touring shows in your own name – you have to have worked out how to shape a longer show – and yet the people who have worked that out tend to be the ones being asked to do 7 or 8 minutes of stuff on telly.
He continued:
With that in mind; what a fantastic opportunity this series has been. When people say they think it’s a shame the show hasn’t been on a bigger channel, I always ask them to tell me any other channel that has given any other comic the opportunity to do this kind of show? Not stand-up and sketches. Not stand-up and anything else. Not a package of discreet bits that could be edited together in a different order and make just as much sense. Proper, long-form stand-up that actually represents what a touring comic does live? I can’t think of many. I don’t think I can think of any. Not just now… but for many years.
In that sense it is a dream job. And I have always tried to go about my job without complaint. There’s no point moaning about having-to-come-up-with-more-stuff when coming-up-with-stuff is one of the key parts of your job. That’s what we’re supposed to do for a living.
RIP.
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