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.