America Unchained

The plan was simple. Go to America. Buy a second-hand car. Drive coast-to-coast without giving any money to The Man™. What could possibly go wrong? Dismayed by the relentless onslaught of faceless American chains muscling in where local businesses had once thrived, Dave Gorman set off on the ultimate American road trip - in search of the true, independent heart of the U S of A. He would eat cherry pie from local diners, re-fuel at dusty gas stations and stock up on supplies from Mom and Pop's grocery store. At least that was the idea. But when did you last see an independent gas station? Gamely, Dave beds down in a Colorado trailer park, sleeps in an Oregon forest treehouse, and even spends Thanksgiving with a Mexican family in Kansas. But when his road trip mutates into an odyssey of near-epic proportions and he finds himself being threatened at gun point in Mississippi, Dave starts to worry about what's going to break down next. The car... or him?

The road trip of a lifetime, An epic quest across America

Dave Gorman is an award-winning comedian, storyteller and writer. He has numerous TV writing credits and was part of the double BAFTA-winning team behind The Mrs Merton Show. His live shows have won many awards and he is the only performer to twice win the Jury Prize for Best One Person Show at the prestigious HBO US Comedy Arts Festival. He was the host of Genius, which ran for three series on Radio 4 and then two series on BBC2. He has appeared in numerous other TV shows, including Absolutely Fabulous, The Frank Skinner Show, Late Show with David Letterman, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. His documentary film, America Unchained, won the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature at the Austin Film Festival. His 2013 TV show, Modern Life Is Goodish, made for UKTV’s Dave channel, saw him dissecting the foibles of modern life in six hour-long comic performances. It quickly established itself as the channel’s most successful original programme that year and a further sixteen episodes have been commissioned for broadcast in 2014 and 2015. His ambition is to one day become a team captain on Call My Bluff.www.davegorman.com