Astrology Experiment

Dave Gorman's Important Astrology Experiment

Broadcast on BBC Two, was entitled Dave Gorman's Important Astrology Experiment and was based upon the idea of a controlled scientific experiment, although naturally not a serious one. The series had six episodes.

The premise was that it would test whether or not astrology really worked. Over the course of forty days, he would try to follow any instructions given to people with his star sign in a selection of horoscopes, while his "control experiment" (his twin brother, Nick) ignored them. Each would record the events of each day, and how they fared in each of three areas of life: love, health and wealth. On each episode of the show, Dave would show footage of the amusing situations he got into by trying to follow his horoscope, and then asked a panel of "experts", agony aunt Denise Robertson (love), GMTV's Dr. Hilary Jones (health) and financial expert Alvin Hall (money), in the studio to assess how he had fared in the three areas. Following an audience vote, Dave would display on a "happiness graph" the difference between how he and his twin brother had fared that week, and whether it showed that astrology had produced a positive effect, a negative effect, or no significant effect at all.

The results of the 'experiment' were dramatic indeed. The various charts showed that his overall happiness, love and wealth steadily began to recede over time (especially wealth as he was forced to travel excessively). Throughout the experiment he had numerous adventures, including travelling to New York to meet a long lost friend and then leaving a few hours later because he was ordered to spend as much time at home as possible, sharing pizza in a park while dressed in a rubber suit, and the ethical trauma of reading an illegally acquired pornographic magazine at Sunday lunch in front of his mother.

The most notable stunt he had to perform was standing in Covent Garden on one leg with his foot in a bucket of water, a tangerine in one hand, and some breakfast cereal in the other, in a bowl that cost £85 from Harrods, singing the national anthem backwards and balancing three books on his head. This was taken entirely literally from a very odd horoscope by Jonathan Cainer, which Gorman deemed so implausible that he did in fact present the copy of the newspaper which published it in the studio, while noting his suspicion that perhaps the author of the horoscope found out about his experiment and was pulling a prank on him.

He showed that his wealth was rapidly declining, as were happiness and love, until, on the last day he invested the last of his money to travel to Dubai to watch a golf tournament (the Dubai Desert Classic) and bet on Ian Woosnam, a golfer that shared his birthday (and would therefore share his luck). He emptied his account to travel there and, using his lucky number of the day from each of the 40 days of his experiment to determine how much he should bet, went ahead with the plan. However, he then found out that not only was gambling illegal in the country, but also that his lucky number indicated he should bet 2,903 Dirhams, which at the time was £549. Ultimately he borrowed the money from his mother and asked her to bet the sum on Ian Woosnam to win the match of the day - as he had been instructed by his horoscope.

With his happiness at an all time low, love scraping the bottom and his finances in an extremely negative position, the experts, his mother, Danny, the crowd and, of course, Dave himself could only hope the bet would pay off - which it ultimately did at odds long enough to place him not only back at level wealth, but supplying him with twice as much cash as he had started off with.

Therefore, he "proved" that astrology works and has made him happier than the control.