Sturminster Newton Women's Institute

My first talk this month was on the Power of Humour in Everyday Life and my audience was the WI in the ancient north Dorset town of Sturminster Newton. Trying to get there and back in the evening from Bournemouth by public transport would have been pretty much impossible so I travelled by train to Poole and was met by their Speaker Secretary Heather Johnson.

Heather comes from Cheshire and when I mentioned my speaking hero Blaster Bates, she told me that when she was the Deputy Head of a large school there, Blaster had given talks to the pupils - and had managed to censor his usual, earthy style to accommodate his impressionable audience!

Stuminster Newton WI meet in the Exchange, an attractive new £2.6 million multi-purpose venue built on the site of what was once one of the largest livestock markets in Britain. The meeting was in the Chivrick room which faces out into the street and it's always interesting when you speak in this sort of setting because curious members of the public glance in at you as they pass and if you gesticulate too enthusiastically, there is always the chance that they will think you are waving to them!

The 30 ladies were a great audience for the 50-minute talk with several of them coming up afterwards to tell me some very amusing stories of their own. I always like delivering a humorous presentation when there are guests present at groups as I hope this may encourage them to become members.

And then Heather drove me back to Bournemouth, joined by her husband, who came along for the ride. Now I have met many committee members of clubs and societies who put in extraordinary efforts for the organisations they belong to but Heather's contribution to this Women's Institute is quite remarkable. Not only does she book all the speakers but she also arranges a very busy schedule of excursions and events (at this particular meeting, she had just discovered a swimming pool in this rural area which the public can use for a very small charge so she was arranging a trip there for her WI). And on this particular evening, she had driven from Sturminster Newton to Poole to pick me up and drive me back for the talk and now she was giving a me a lift, not back to Poole, but all the way to Bournemouth so that her journey back home would be even longer. I would estimate that altogether she must have driven over 100 miles - the equivalent of someone giving me a lift from Bournemouth to London!

Public Speaking Tip #226: Speaker secretaries of clubs and societies work very hard to provide a varied, interesting and entertaining programme of presentations for their members so a speaker should give their very best performance to make all that voluntary effort seem worthwhile.

Fugelmere Ladies' Probus

On 16 June, I gave an after-lunch talk on the Power of Humour in Everyday Life for the Fugelmere Ladies' Probus Club of Fleet in Hampshire.

It was a glorious, sunny day but their President Pam Grist might have wished it was rather less warm as she ended up waiting an extra half an hour for me at Fleet station due to my train from Bournemouth being delayed due to signalling problemsand this leading to a missed connection at Basingstoke.

This club actually meets some way outside Fleet at Peppone's restaurant which is located at the Bownhurst Golf Centre at Crondall. Peppone's serves traditional Mediterranean food with ingredients flown in from Southern Italy and the menu, which included an excellent main course of Sicilian pork, made a real change.

Aterwards, I chose to speak from the end of the room, rather than from behind the table, as this gave me more room for my props, etc, and, I felt, better visibility for the 60 or so ladies present.

Public Speaking Tip #224: Although the traditional idea of after dinner (or lunch) speaking is that the speaker gets up and performs from the place where they have just been eating the meal, you should consider your own comfort and that of the audience. Can they see you without having to crane their necks? Are there obstacles in the room, such as pillars that block the view of the speaker altogether? Do you need to be near an electric point? Is there some 'secret' prop that you wish to produce with a flourish but which may be visible in advance to other diners if you speak from the table.

You must choose where to deliver your speech from - just try not to be so far from the audience that the intimacy of speaking from behind the table is lost.

I was actually speaking next to an open door which was very cooling but there are some factors to consider when speaking in an open air (or almost al fresco) setting. Noise for example. (There was a little chatter from people outside but nothing too distracting. Fortunately there were no traffic sounds to worry about). Plus the fact that the odd, curious non-member may hover nearby listening. And, even on a warm day, the possibility that a sudden gust of wind can blow away important papers - such as notes! (This happened to me at one venue so I have allowed for the possibilty ever since by using a clipboard or weighing items down!)

Public Speaking Tip #225: Speaking in the open air or next to an open door should not prove too problematic for a speaker provided you anticipate any challenges from additional noise or the elements - and it can be a lot more comfortable than being stuck in the far corner of a boiling hot room!

But there were no problems on this occasion; it all worked very well and the talk got a great reception, so much so, in fact, that they booked me on the spot to go back in exactly a year's time with my Patrick Campbell talk (as I have mentioned, your checklist of items to take to speaking engagements should includeyour diary!)

My thanks to the patient President Pam for running me back to the station afterwards.

My Freelance Comedy Writer blog

A few weeks ago, I started an additional blog entitled Freelance Comedy Writer. It's different from this one in that it's not intended to give tips. The posts are also far less frequent but if you have been wondering about my comedy scriptwriting, especially for radio, then you can certainly read about it there. Many of the posts are updated versions of my Radio Magazine columns, speaking of which, here is an article I wrote for the Radio Magazine Issue 762, 15 November 2006:

I Have Listeners Too

‘All he did was talk for two hours about his work’.

Overhearing the two London students’ discussion about some unfortunate speaker was disconcerting because the following day I was due to deliver a university lecture myself. For two hours. About my work.

I needn’t have worried. The crowd on the MA (Hons) in Radio Production at Bournemouth were fine (they even sent me a Christmas card) but audiences at speaking engagements can vary in terms of the challenges they represent.

I’ve been giving after dinner speeches, talks and workshops since 1996. I decided early on that, despite being a comedy writer, I didn’t want to simply deliver a string of gags, so my presentations mostly consist of humorous anecdotes and observations, although I will sometimes include topical monologues for predominantly male organisations, such as Rotary.

Corporate functions, business clubs and literary festival bookings involve speaking to all ages but many of my other talks are for older groups.

These audiences are always fascinated to hear about radio – they are, after all, a generation that grew up with it as their main entertainment medium and they continue to listen for many hours a week - but they can have misconceptions when they hear that a radio scriptwriter is coming to speak to them.

After asking ‘Do you work for Solent?’ if they’re a southern crowd (the answer is no but any offers gratefully considered), the discovery that I have written for national BBC shows leads some of them to the belief that I am an apologist for the Corporation. One of the most ridiculous questions I’ve ever been asked (after a talk which made it perfectly clear that I am a self-employed, freelance radio sub-contractor) was ‘Why aren't the BBC televising the Queen Mother's hundredth birthday celebrations?' I felt like a shopkeeper being blamed for the actions of one of his customers!

Certain questions come up again and again. ‘Does Wogan write his own material?’, ‘Are any panel games truly spontaneous?’ and ‘Have you ever come across…?’ (followed by the name of some technician relative of theirs who worked at Bush House  twenty years before I was born). Some I can answer, some I couldn't even guess at, not that my replies are always accepted anyway. I had great difficulty convincing one lady that having a large amount of laughter on a programme doesn’t automatically mean it’s ‘canned’.

There are many fond memories of classic shows among these audiences and it’s always a pleasure to tell those who haven’t yet considered buying a DAB radio about the current BBC7 schedules. A chairman driving me to a lunch reminisced about Journey into Space (as opposed to into Chorleywood where we were actually headed) and was astounded when I mentioned the digital repeats.

Much of the newer radio output leaves these audiences cold but then I’m sure that when they were enjoying the Goons in the fifties, there were OAPs then who ‘just didn’t get it’.

I must admit that it has felt rather pointless at recent writers’ circle talks trying to explain how to write radio sketches when there are so few programmes that actually welcome new contributors but in recent interviews Paul Schlesinger, Head of BBC Radio Entertainment, has hinted at a return to the ‘open door’ policy.

If I’ve made public speaking sound grim, believe me, it’s not, in fact I find it an enjoyable break from the solitude of writing. It also confirms the enduring appeal of radio because that’s the connection that often secures me the booking in the first place.

Just don’t expect me to know where Mr Wogan gets his jokes from!

So what tip can I extract for you from this article? Well...

Public Speaking Tip #223: As well as the 'if-I-had-a-pound-every-time-I've-been-asked-that!'-type questions, you should always expect the unexpected!

Before you look at http://www.freelancecomedywriter.blogspot.com/ you should be warned about the big scary picture! Along with the 'dummy' shots, this was taken at the Blah di Blah auditions which I blogged about here.