Wolverhampton Speechwriters
Speechwriter required at the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government to be based in Wolverhampton or London.
Get your skates on to apply for this job just before midnight on Thursday.
Cicero Awards
The winning speeches for the Cicero Awards 2021 have been published. The Cicero Awards are the Oscars of the global speechwriting industry.
Congratulations to our European supporters who carried off laurels: Lech Mintowt-Czyz, Kathleen Wyatt, Michel Reinders, Emma Anbeek, Arne Muis, Sjors Talsma.
Download the PDF of the winning speeches here.
Find out more about Cicero and Quintilian
Tomorrow (Thursday 22 April at 3pm (UK Time)), I’ll be interviewing Professor Michael Fontaine from Cornell University about Cicero and Quintilian and whether they’re still relevant to today’s speechwriters and public speakers.
Princeton University Press have given us a 25% discount code (not including postage): JOK21 if you want to buy his new book, How to Tell a Joke, An Ancient Guide to the Art of Humour. (Valid till 31 May).
Macbeth
I did a voice session on Macbeth a couple of weeks ago, with Matthew Collins.
I then watched this video with Professor Paul Cantor about Macbeth and how it’s about the clash of pagan and Christian values and how a political dictatorship emerges, and what the consequences are.
Cantor is a brilliant lecturer and his YouTube channel Shakespeare and Politics has a fantastic selection of videos covering most of the plays.
If you get into them, you’ll be soon asking yourself questions like, is my speaker a hero in the Roman sense or the Christian sense?
Benet Brandreth’s new book
Gyles Brandreth’s son, Benet Brandreth QC, is a keen public speaker and rhetorician. He has written a book which is published this week, Shakespearean Rhetoric: A Practical Guide for Actors, Directors, Students and Teachers
Last year, I interviewed Benet with John-Paul Flintoff about the book and how he uses rhetoric in his work as a barrister.
John-Paul Flintoff talks to Lucinda Worlock
We hosted John-Paul Flintoff in conversation with voice coach Lucinda Worlock last week to discuss his new book, A modest book about how to make an adequate speech.
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