An actor playing the part of a speaker

The famous nineteenth-century magician Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, generally credited with being 'the father of modern magic', once said: A conjuror is not a juggler; he is an actor playing the part of a magician, an artist whose fingers have more need to move with deftness than with speed.

This way of thinking transformed magic from being simply a demonstration of skill to having elegance and a story. Instead of standing in marketplaces as they had used to, magicians moved into theatres and salons, and magic became a sophisticated entertainment.

It seems to me that public speakers can learn a lot from this too. When we're in front of an audience, we're not there just to speak, we're there to engage with the audience. And, contrary to popular opinion, we're certainly not there just to get through it as quickly as possible! Deftness rather than speed is what's required. When we're speaking in public, we have the freedom to speak much more slowly than we normally do, giving us more time to think.

Public speaking is a performance like any other (which is why it's so essential to practise). As at a theatre, the audience has come specifically to listen to the presenter and, either literally or metaphorically, we have to give them their money's worth.

If you think of yourself as an actor playing the part of a speaker, it may actually remove some of the fear of standing up in front of an audience. As I've suggested on the Delivering Your Speech page of the website, if it helps you, pretend to be someone else entirely. Before speaking in public, I've occasionally persuaded myself I was Madonna or some other confidence-oozing character but more often I just go into public Georgie mode, the version of me that's a bit larger than life. It works for me.

(If you're interested, you can read more about Robert-Houdin on my website Paris Magic.)

Learn from the pros

Derren Brown is currently touring the UK with his phenomenal show Enigma and I saw it this week at The Lowry in Salford Quays. Apart from being amazed by what he did, I was struck by what a great example Derren is of how to interact with a crowd.

There was no warm-up. At 7.30, Derren bounced on to the stage and asked a man from the front row to choose some random words. Instantly, the audience was agog to see what happened next. Of course, it helps that Derren is famous and extremely popular, so people expect to be interested. However, even if we haven’t got that advantage, we should behave as if we have. To a great extent, people take us at our own valuation and conducting ourselves with confidence gives us the best chance of being well received.

At one point, Derren asked a spectator to come up on stage from the very top circle and it took her a good 3 or 4 minutes to do so. Derren was thus alone on stage, unable to go on until the lady joined him, and he did nothing, just waited. I would suggest for less experienced performers that it’s a good idea to have an anecdote or two up the sleeve for gaps like this but in Derren’s case it didn’t matter at all. We were all buzzing with everything we had already seen and in anticipation of what was going to happen next and a few moments of down time gave us an opportunity to talk about it. If Derren had felt awkward, it would have been completely different but, as I’ve said many times, the speaker creates the atmosphere and, as we waited for the volunteer from the top circle, we were excited.

You can learn a lot from watching performers you admire and Derren Brown is as good a model as you’ll find of a sensational showman.

Avoid cliches, corn and verbal mannerisms

The magic convention was excellent. Extremely talented and diverse magicians from all over the world congregated in South Shields for a few days to share secrets and to entertain one another. If you're interested, you can find out more about magic conventions on my website We Love Magic.

From the public speaking point of view, something that struck me was how often I heard the same lines. Particularly these days, when magicians watch - and listen to - one another on DVD all the time, cliches and corny gags are copied and repeated more and more. Practically every time somebody from the audience signs a card, for example, he or she is asked to put his or her credit card number underneath the signature. This may (or may not) have been marginally amusing the first time somebody said it but, if you've heard it before, it's just irritating.

A new one is, when giving instructions to an assistant from the audience, the frequent use of "Do me a favour". Personally, I feel this expression is out of place in the context but, anyway, it's the endless repetition that grates.

It's certainly not just magicians who behave like this. How often in everyday life do people use the expression "to be honest"? How many corny jokes do you hear in the average day?

When you're writing a speech or presentation, be careful to avoid cliches and corn. And, while you're rehearsing, listen out for your own verbal mannerisms. Do you, for instance, ask, "Do you know what I mean?" more often than is necessary? If so, make a conscious effort to cut down, or even cut it out altogether.

If you overuse cliches, you risk distracting people from the content of your speech. Find an original way to say it and people will be far more impressed. You might even start a new cliche. :-)

Welcome!

Hello everybody and welcome to my new blog. I've got so much to say about public speaking that doesn't seem to fit neatly into a category on the website that I thought I'd start a blog and post my ideas as they occur to me.

I'm about to set off for South Shields, to a magic convention, so I can't write more now but I wanted to get the blog off the ground, as it were. Back soon!