Frankie Howerd clip; 2m 21 sec

(Above is a clip of late British comedian Frankie Howerd on the chat show Parkinson).

I got asked at a humour workshop that I ran recently the following question:

“How far can you push risque humour before it becomes too much at Toastmasters?”

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We had a really successful night at Grosvenor Square Speakers at the beginning of this week. We decided to experiment with the way the club chairs the contests and we divided duties successfully between myself as VPE and Debbie Mahs. Even though the club doesn’t usually run its contests this way, it made a refreshing change and also reflects how the contest is run in later rounds. Read the rest of this entry

Fellow blogger and speaker Eric Feng made an interesting post over at The Public Speaking Blog back in August on whether an award-winning speech at Toastmasters can be considered an excellent speech. Here’s how the article opens:

“A couple of days ago, I raved about having a female winner for the International Speech Contest held by Toastmasters International. This competition is akin to the Olympics of public speaking. Anyhow, one of the readers (Simon from UK) commented that “a Toastmasters competition is not the best way to measure skills as a public speaker…” and he sees “competitions as a bit too artificial to give a decent idea”…” Read the rest of this entry

A couple of years back I was fortunate enough to appear in a film. Now, after a Hollywood film festival this past summer, it’s now got a limited cinema release next month at the Odeon in Panton Street, just off Leicester Square. I don’t have one of the starring roles, I do appear right at the end as a lawyer (yes, I DO have dialogue). So if you do get to see it I know it’ll be torture for you to wait for my big screen debut until the end, but I’m sure you’ll survive.

Here’s the word on the street re the film: Read the rest of this entry

I ran a humorous speech workshop at my Toastmasters club Grosvenor Square Speakers last night. It’s a little bit difficult in London at the moment because the majority of the workshops for this contest season happened on the same day. There were others I wanted to attend, but had my own to run… Read the rest of this entry