How to construct a logically-sequenced and effective short topical comedy routine for public speaking

In my previous post I wrote about adding topical jokes to a speech or presentation. If you find that you have a number of these then they can either be inserted at various relevant points in your script if they can be introduced naturally or, if appropriate, you may wish instead to link several of them together into a 'what's-been-happening?' routine.

If you choose the second option then you will find it much easier to remember your material (even without notes) and your audience will find it easier to follow if your topical gags and observations flow in a logical sequence rather than just delivering jokes in a scattergun fashion. I learned how to do this during my many years writing one-liners which were used in BBC Radio 2's hugely successful News Huddlines. The opening monologue was put together each week by the late Peter Hickey who I posted about here and also in my other (occasional) blog Freelance Comedy Writer.

As an example of this, let's look at a topical monologue that I delivered last autumn as part of my talk My Life As A Freelance Comedy Writer at a ladies' luncheon club in Hampshire. The routine was introduced after the section where I spoke about writing topical comedy for radio.

The first gag was the one about Katie Price that you can see here. The story was a few weeks old by then but jokes about smaller stories often have a longer shelf-life. The audience sometimes won't even have heard that news item so they won't have had a chance to get tired of it! It got a good laugh (and this is important: your topical monologue, like any comedy routine, should open and close with strong material).

The mention of silicone led naturally into a joke about technology, in this case the estate of Winston Churchill joining Twitter and Facebook.

And the topic of social media and communication was followed by a gag about a British tabloid newspaper being accused of hacking the phone of a celebrity chef.

So I was onto food now and this was the obvious place for material about supermarkets under fire for using excess packaging and a survey showing that a very high proportion of pets are obese.

And the subjects of both animals and health sequenced perfectly into to my closing gag which concerned a news story about NHS patients working with farm animals as a cure for depression.

The routine went very well.

Here's another example: just a couple of nights ago, I delivered some topical one-liners at a Rotary after dinner speech in Surrey as part of the same talk. I often mention a sketch I wrote years ago about a spacecraft and so, following this, I delivered a line which I have been using very successfully for a couple of months now which is about the net which is being launched to collect debris floating around in space. This event won't be happening for a couple of  years so here is a joke that I can use for quite a while yet!

From there, I went into a gag about a cheap, non-surgical facelift which had been featured in the papers. Why this one? Well, it's going from hi-tech to low-tech!

And this mention of something inexpensive obviously segued nicely into the rest of my topical gags in that section which were all about the economy (taking in supermarkets, comparison websites and budget stores) and thus particularly suitable for an audience with a high proportion of business people. Again, I was pleased with the response.

Don't include weaker humour just because it fits perfectly into a sequence - you don't want to drag the whole monologue down. You may also have some material which has no link to what went before it. That shouldn't put you off including it if it's good. And don't make the routine too long; both of the above consisted of just half a dozen gags. This is, after all, an addition to a speech - not an entire stand-up act.

Public Speaking Tip #362: A short topical comedy routine can be an effective addition to a speech or presentation if it has a strong opening and close and the material inbetween flows logically.