It’s a funny thing (pun fully intended) but humour is very subjective and a flat gag at the wrong time will kill any speech stone dead. However, a best man’s speech without any will also kill a party quicker than a hurricane. So, how and when should you use it?
Fully understanding your audience is a great place to start. Are they expecting humour, is it appropriate, will it enhance your message or will it give the impression you aren’t taking the subject seriously?
As a very young salesman years ago I wanted my clients to like me, and therefore I used humour as a way to defuse any tension. However, I remember my boss at the time telling me that one of my customers had said that he found it hard to take anything I said seriously because I was always smiling! A hard lesson to learn, but a valuable one too…sometimes it is best not to laugh and smile. If I am announcing to an internal team that cost savings will need to be made during the year, it’s probably not best to follow it up with a laugh and joke. However, if I am introducing a new member to the team, a lighthearted jab at their expense might (and only might) be appropriate to show that they are human.
How do you get it right? That is where the experience of a seasoned speechwriter comes in. There is no hard and fast rule, but by putting yourself in the minds of the audience, the speechwriter should gauge where to set the humour slider…from zero to 100. Most likely it will be somewhere in between, but that fine tuning is where the skill lies. Get it right, and you win the day. Get it wrong, however….
Hamish Haynes
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