Unless a
person is naturally witty, it is challenging to craft a humorous speech. And even
then, it is not an easy thing to do.
However, we can consider the technicalities of humour, and draft the
parameters of what constitutes a humorous speech, and more importantly, a
winning one. It would not do if the only
person who finds it funny is the speaker.
In general, whilst
we may have this habit of sprinkling sarcasm and irony in our speeches, by themselves,
they may not be accessible to a wider audience, and cannot, by themselves,
build a humorous speech. We require one
or both of the two other major elements of humour: hyperbole and misdirection.
The first
thing to remember is that a humorous speech, particularly in a Toastmasters
context, is distinct from stand-up comedy.
We are not telling a series of anecdotes which may or may not revolve
around a theme. We are not performing a
roast, which is a series of witty insults, which is culturally specific. Like any speech, this is about bringing the audience
on a journey, and relating a story that has lessons and experiences which
resonate with them. The speaker persona
still channels the audience.
We begin
crafting the speech by deciding on the outline of a story. The best source of materials is always our
personal experiences. We are the experts
of ourselves, and no one can say we are wrong, or challenge our credibility
there. The irony of humorous speeches is
that the best material is found in our most painful memories, our personal
tragedies, our loss. Humour is part of
our coping mechanism. It is no coincidence
that the best comedians speak from pain, and sometimes suffered conditions as
diverse as depression, bullying, and loss on a scale normally people may not
comprehend. To them, comedy is life, it
is therapy, it is validation. Even the
mildest comedy comes from a place of discomfort. There is no humour in self-satisfaction, only
gloating, and the audience reacts negatively to that. Petty revenge on the other, is vicariously cathartic.
The next
step is to fill in the details. Many
people would find it a challenge to see the jokes, and craft the punchlines
here. That should not be the
concern. The story has to be
congruent. This is where you work out
the introduction of the premise, the story, and the call to action. In that sense, it is no different from
writing a normal speech. It is important
that a humorous speech be short. If the
time is five to seven minutes, the material should be at least a minute or more
less than that, since the magic of a humorous speech is in the delivery.
Once that is
done, this is the part where we look at the speech, and tweak the words, working
in the elements of humour. The easiest,
and lowest hanging fruit is to play on words.
A master of this was the late George Denis Patrick Carlin. Much of his material was built on the
incongruity of word play, and how, when we think about it, language and
rhetorical devices are absurd. The mastery
of Carlin, however, is that he did not stop at rhetorical absurdism. He demonstrated, through his material, that
words matter, and how we are thought to say certain things have shaped our
views on certain issues. He then
expounded and expanded on this to the wider tragedy that the masses of humanity
are willing victims of the political systems we put in place above us. In this, even as we laugh, we think, and
there is that call to action there.
A second
type of humour, and this was the forte of masters such as Julius Henry “Groucho”
Marx, was misdirection humour.
Misdirection humour subverts our expectations of the story. This may involve transposing the protagonist
and the antagonist, the hero and villain, or simply upending our
expectations. “Groucho” Marx passed away
of pneumonia on the 19th August 1977. In his obituary, The New York Times wrote, “He
developed the insult into an art form.”
Finally, the
easiest way to inject humour into a speech is hyperbole, or exaggeration. This can be mild, for comic effect, or it can
be stretched until it becomes satire.
The art of the satire is to stretch the credulity of the audience
without breaking it. At the end of the
speech, the audience must have that sense of disbelief, wondering if the story
was real.
This process
of injecting humour into a crafted speech goes through several drafts and iterations. The speaker must note how he should sound at
various points of the story. There is a
stronger emphasis on vocal variety, and connecting to the audience. The audience must feel that they are part of
the story, either as unwilling witnesses, hapless bystanders, or even
co-conspirators. At some points, it
massages the ego of the audience when they feel they are in on the joke, and
then misdirection is applied to subvert this, so that they can laugh at themselves. A quip published in 1937, and mistakenly
attributed to Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill goes, “Diplomat: A person who
can tell you to go to hell in such a tactful way that you will look forward to
making the trip.” To paraphrase that
here, a humour is the ability to insult people in such a way that they laugh at
themselves.
Within all
that, the best way to deflect criticism and audience pushback is for the
speaker to be the vicarious sacrifice, utilising his speaker persona to be the
willing victim of the joke. This is the essence
of self-deprecating humour. It makes it
easier for people to laugh at themselves when they think they are laughing at others
first. An ideal scenario is for that dawning
realisation to be worked into the call to action.
The final
element of delivering a humorous speech is the relentless practice. For Toastmasters, what they can do is use the
airtime of chapter meetings, even during the table topics segment or delivering
a project evaluation, to test out punchlines.
This allows the speaker to hone the material, one part at a time, and
the delivery, without revealing the entire speech until it is time to deliver
it.
One of the
considerations in speech delivery that is often neglected is to pause after a
punchline. These pauses add up, and that
it why we need to leave time for it. The
right deployment of pauses elevates the humour.
Body language, exaggerated hand gestures, even rolling of the eyes –
these are the visual elements of humour that enhance a speech.
Ultimately,
humour is an ongoing experiment of experiential living. People want to laugh, they want to be
entertained, and they want to feel good.
Instead of being intimidated, I encourage people to go out, and try to
be funny. At the very worst, people will
laugh at you.
