Humorous Speech Workshop Review

Ola Aralepo, member of Tube Talk, public speaking trainer with Speakers Trust and comedian, shared his tips and tools with City Speakers and guests that helped him write a speech that eventually won the UK and Ireland Humorous Speech contest in 2011.

Ola & Guests

The evening was a roaring success – the room was packed, with visitors attending from many clubs, including one guest all the way from Eastbourne.

Ola started off by guided us through the 4 key parts of creating a humorous speech:

  • A – Attitude: Setting the engagement and scene right from the start
  • C – Catharsis: Getting rid of your self-conscious feelings
  • T – Target: How to choose the subject to speak about
  • S – Set-up: Creating the punch line to surprise the audience

After the break, the audience participated in building an example speech based around “foolish love”, then Ola took questions that included how to handle taboo subjects, judge scoring and practice vs. spontaneity.

Slides and notes from the evening can be downloaded here; if you are interested in more information, take a visit to his website: www.olaaralepo.co.uk

Entries for this year’s upcoming Humorous Speech and Table Topics contest on Tuesday September 17th are now being accepted.  Any club member in good standing (paid your club fees) can take part in either or both the competitions.

Please contact Sam at splgborrow@gmail.com to register

As a committee, we want to make sure our members can contribute and get the most out if their membership, if you have any ideas for future workshops then please a drop a not to committee@cityoflondontoastmasters.org and why not help us organise it.