Nick R Thomas - A Public Speaker's Blog

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Sunday, November 23

Speechwriting in verse? Well, you could do worse!

by Nick R Thomas A.L.A.M. (Public Speaking) on Sun 23 Nov 2008 09:58 AM GMT

An unusual speechwriting commission

Earlier this year, I blogged about being commissioned to write a 'best men's speech' (a double-act for two speakers). More recently, I was asked to write a speech at very short notice for a client with a significant anniversary less than a week away - and they wanted it all in rhyme!

I welcome these occasional departures from the norm. They are imaginative and make the occasion that little bit different. Obviously, they are not appropriate for every type of event; delivering disastrous, credit crunch company results to your shareholders is probably best done by a single straight man, not a pair of comics while a funeral address in rhyming couplets might just be seen as lacking the necessary solemnity.

But for a light-hearted occasion, such as a wedding, anniversary, birthday or possibly even a leaving party, this can work.

Public Speaking Tip #258: Provided it is not a solemn occasion and no other speaker on the bill is doing the same thing, a short, humorous speech in verse can be very effective. For one thing, it demonstrates a great degree of preparation!

As with all my speechwriting, I collected as much information as possible, set these details out on a Mind Map, noted the humorous ideas as they occurred to me and, when I had enough, started putting the script together.

I can't claim that the scansion was perfect or that the rhyming would win me any poetry prizes but it was a humorous speech in verse and I was pleased that I was able to work in pretty much all the information that had been given to me. I always write a bit more than the client asks for so that they have some choice about what material to include. In this case, the client wanted to speak for less than five minutes (any longer would certainly have been excessive in rhyme, I think!) and there was room for them to omit a verse and still have enough material.

After tweaking the odd couplet, the final version was emailed to this speaker and they sent me a card a few days later thanking me. Apparently the response was 'Great!'

For a written piece like this, you really do need to famialarise yourself with the material even more than with a conventional script. It will also be more acceptable to be seen to be reading rather than working around briefer notes but you must still make regular eye contact with your audience.

Public Speaking Tip #259: A speech in verse needs to be read out rather than memorised or it will look too much like a party piece (even if, for this particular occasion, it is one!) And even though you will be reading it, you need to familiarise yourself with the rhythm of the lines, the scansion and the rhyming.

One further piece of advice I would give concerning a speech like this would be not to inform the audience that it's going to be in rhyme; start off as if you are going to deliver a normal speech. The realisation that it's in verse will gradually dawn on the audience and this will add to the humour.

Public Speaking Tip #260: Don't give away the surprise of an unusual humorous speech - you're doing yourself out of laughs!

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The sound equipment was sound!

by Nick R Thomas A.L.A.M. (Public Speaking) on Sun 23 Nov 2008 08:54 AM GMT

Kent Active Retirement Fellowship, Rochester

As I have mentioned before, it's always a pleasure speaking in Kent because of the great audience response and on 13 October I gave an afternoon talk about The Power of Humour in Everyday Life for around 85 members the Rochester branch of the Kent Active Retirement Fellowship who meet in a church hall high on a hill overlooking the Medway.

I was offered an interesting combination of equipment for the talk: a mic on a stand which slotted neatly into the base of the lectern. The club's sound man was worried that the mic would cut out if I wasn't permanently close to it but it worked perfectly throughout. The talk went really well and I sold a fair few booklets!

Public Speaking Tip #257: Even temperamental equipment can sometimes function properly so unless you know that a microphone, for example, will definitely play up, you have to try it out - you may be pleasantly surprised.

This was a very good club to speak to. My thanks and good wishes to Mr Seaman who gave me a lift in from the station and back into the city. I spent some time looking around Rochester which has a magnificent Cathedral and castle.

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Saturday, November 22

Slow, slow, quip, quip, slow...

by Nick R Thomas A.L.A.M. (Public Speaking) on Sat 22 Nov 2008 06:27 AM GMT

Drayton and Farlington Carers' Support Group

My talk on 9 October was for the Drayton and Farlingrton Carers' Support Group in Cosham, Hampshire.

I have spoken several times in Cosham and I have to say i find it to be a very friendly town, the sort of place where total strangers smile and say hello to me in the street (and when I'm walking along deep in thought about my next gig, I don't exactly look approachable!) On one occasion, I had just got off the train and was looking at the map to refresh my memory about how to get to the Southern Electricity premises where I had spoken a year earlier and a chap on his lunch break spotted me and insisted on giving me a lift for no payment to the venue over a mile away.

The venue this time was the Drayton Institute, a small but remarkably busy centre where I was due to speak to an audience of nearly 20 carers and helpers. I had just started My Life as a Freelance Comedy Writer when a member interrupted and said that a couple of ladies, one in particular, couldn't hear me. Now I project pretty well (especially to tiny audiences in small rooms) but apparently there were members who had hearing aids and needed the loop system from the microphone - which I had not been asked to use!

Rather than lose any more time setting it up, it was agreed that I would speak louder and somewhat slower than usual and we would see how we all got on! Now, humorous speakers can sometimes rattle off our words more quickly than others. It's perhaps to do with timing and also because we have a lot of tried and tested material which we know will get laughs if there's room for it. One of my fellow humorous speakers in the Bournemouth area, the hugely-respected Reverend Stewart Timbrell, is renowned for his rapid-fire delivery.

I found it to be an interesting experiment. There were one or two items which I had to omit altogether because I would have needed more notice to alter the way in which I timed the delivery. Meanwhile. the remaining material, which would probably have taken 45 minutes to deliver under normal circumstances, occupied nearly an hour. The audience was very sharp and even applauded the odd line.

Afterwards, I made a point of asking the two ladies whether they had been able to follow me. The first one said that she certainly had and the second (the one who had asked me to slow right down) said she had been able to catch most of it (I had noticed her laughing at regular intervals) but I gave her a copy of my booklet in case she had missed anything!

All told, it would have been much easier for everyone if the mic and loop system had been employed but it was a useful experience for me to self-edit that much as I went along because I knew I might overrun (an hour was the allotted time).

Public Speaking Tip #256: There may be odd occasions when you suddenly have to - or want to - chop and change parts of your well-honed material, considering each line just before delivery and making rapid alterations where necessary. This shows that you are not at the mercy of a parrot-fashion, 'party piece' script but able to extemporise around your set information, anecdotes, etc. I am constantly coming up with unplanned little extras and changes which I had no idea I was going to deliver until a split second before I do. To me, this feels like real speaking - not mere recitation.

After tea and a nice chat with the members, it was time to leave and, with that customary Cosham kindness, I was given a lift back into town.

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