Genius With Dave Gorman

Dave Gorman: Genius. Monday Nights. BBC2

If you came to any of the recordings then you know the show has a very different format to last year.

Things To Do Before I Die: Appear on a TV show

The TV show appearance is included on my 'Bucket List' not because it was something I particularly wanted to do, but because it is exactly the kind of thing I have always shied away from and is therefore, a challenge. I feel uncomfortable about being in the spotlight. Performing in stunt shows for six years never felt like being held under the microscope in the way that having a camera pointed at you does. It's this fear of the limelight that caused me to turn down the opportunity to train Emma Parker-Bowles to drive a car on two wheels for the Sky show 'Vroom Vroom'. That impossible mission was taken up by a friend of mine, veteran stunt driver Graeme Forder.

As it turned out, my inclusion in a TV show happened by accident. I didn't look around for a game show to apply for, and I certainly wasn't going to enter one of Simon Cowell's dubious talent contests! By pure chance, I got selected for Dave Gorman's BBC 2 show 'Genius'.

Are You a Genius?

Have you ever been struck by an idea that you believe could change the world? Has your moment of genius then been diluted by the realisation that it is impractical or too wild to ever be taken seriously? Well, here is your chance to pitch your ideas, talk through all the funny aspects and repercussions of how it might work and maybe even demonstrate its benefits to a national television audience.

Join in with Genius

Dave and all of us at GeniusHQ need your help! We want you to send in your extraordinary notions, amazing concepts and barn-storming ideas to make our new series even more chock-full of genius than the first!

I saw most of the first six-part series of Genius (basically an idiot version of Dragons' Den, done for laughs), but to be honest the concept wasn't as strong or as amusing as I expected it to be. I think one problem is that too many of the submitted "genius" ideas were either fairly poor, limited in scope for discussion ("make the Isle Of Wight symmetrical"), or just not as funny as those written suggestions Dave would read out during an interval period (perhaps signifying why this idea worked better on radio?) In TV, the ideas need to be more visual and have enough depth to inspire a five-minute investigation -- usually involving a working prototype to trial in the studio.

I guess I'm saying the show was of mixed success, for me. But I still remember that guy with the extra hood zipped into his sleeve (so you could hug someone under the pretense of keeping them dry from rain), the double-bed with a "conveyor belt" duvet that wrapped around the underside (to prevent couples ever having the "stolen bedcovers" argument), or the idea of coming first in the 100m sprint by wearing 100m tall shoes and just falling over at the start line.

Hopefully they'll iron out some of the kinks for series 2, which really boils down to selecting more imaginative pitches that justify the time spent discussing them. I mean, it's the kind of show that tempts you to surf channels if someone comes on with an unfunny idea, because they can spend nearly 10 minutes dissecting it. So, maybe more pitches per episode would help, too.

The guest in this episode is the bona fide genius Stewart Lee, a man the TV world inevitably can't get enough of now his own super stand-up show has come to an end. But he nearly meets his match with the inventive folk in this series finale, who offer up swimming commuters, psychologically enhanced chickens and a choir controlled by a piano. The show has been a hugely imaginative celebration of the bonkers brainwave, and we'll be sadder than a toddler who's dropped his Mr Whippy if it doesn't get another series... the tumbleweeds blowing across what must be the best props room in TV would simply be too much to bear.

Dave Gorman's guest tonight is a slimmed-down, healthy-looking Johnny Vegas, who is called upon to decide which ideas are pure genius and which are the product of unsound minds. One scheme is for so-called dating insurance: a couple puts money in a pot every week and, when they split up, the one who has been dumped gets the cash. Better still is the gentleman who has invented a box for the torture of inanimate objects. Why? "Because inanimate objects are so intensely annoying and there are very few ways you really get back at them." The most alarming moment is when Vegas gets into bed with Gorman to demonstrate a fully wrap-around duvet. Forces are unleashed that are very hard to control.

This fun little show has been coming on leaps and bounds over the weeks after a slightly off-colour start. Tonight sees the always lovely Dave Gorman joined by Johnny Vegas, who is going to bring his tap-room wit and stout clagged phlegm to the proceedings. As ever, the real stars of the show are the contestants who have come up with 'genius' ideas and invention that are wilfully impractical and often quite surreal.

Frank Skinner is Dave Gorman's guest, and among the ideas competing for the title of "genius" tonight is a face mask lined with razor blades to make shaving easier. That one was a nonstarter. There is a lady who suggests that all maths teachers should have to use dance as a teaching aid. The most popular idea is a proposal to attach prisoners to dynamos as an alternative source of energy. Skinner himself is in favour of it. "I like the idea of old age pensioners saying 'Cycling is too good for them'," he says.

Week two of this clever and entertaining new comedy (new to TV, at least) and host Dave Gorman is joined for this one by Frank Skinner. The idea, remember, is to weigh up viewers' suggestions for a better world, with tonight's ideas including melon-flavoured cucumbers and a cunning new way to power the national grid, using prisoners on exercise bikes.