Margaret Thatcher once said these immortal words
“Being powerful is like being a lady, if you have to tell someone you are, you aren’t.”
And the same is true of being funny. If you say you’re the next Sarah Millican, people are likely to roll their eyes and think “Yeah. Right”. Don’t tell them, show them.
A great friend of mine Jeremy Nicholas is a broadcaster, writer, speaker and has aspirations to be Willy Wonka (or the chocolate equivalent of Nick O’Teen). His tag line is “Keeping conference delegates awake since 1994” placed right at the top of his website. Showing an ankle’s worth of humour is far more powerful than “Can be funny with a following wind.”
But he doesn’t stop there; under 10 Unusual Things About Jeremy – which I urge you to read on a day when everything is going Pete Tong – is a list of anecdotes that he might just drop into his MC patter or his speech at your event. They are short, easy to read, funny and you get a real sense of what he is like in real life*. Yes, there is some shameless name dropping, but let’s be honest being punched by Brian Clough is infinitely more interesting than being punched by some bruiser no-one has ever heard of – and it will make football associations think that Jeremy is the perfect match for their next event.
If being seen as funny is important to you, then you don’t need grainy video clips with mumbling sound shot by an amateur as you stumble your way through an open mic event, or Comedy Night at the PSA Mega event. You simply need to make people smile, if not laugh out loud, as they are reading your words.
For the proof is in the giggling.
*p.s. When I first wrote this article, I typed “you get a real sense of what he is like in the flesh” but images of Nigel Farage skinny dipping off Bournemouth pier sent shudders down my spine and I changed the words to “in real life.” Two lessons for the price of one. Bargain.
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