I went to the first night of Wednesday Night Fever at Lee Harvey’s Backyard Club, courtesy of Hils Jago at Amused Moose where I will be starting a stand up course in a couple of weeks time.
There were 8 acts for the evening, and I stayed for 5 of them before realising that I was going to be left stranded in London for the night if I didn’t make a move for home.
Each of the acts was quite different in terms of style and delivery, although my favourite was a guy called Joe. He delivered a series of witty stories, keeping me on the edge of my seat anticipating what he was going to say next. His delivery was largely free of swearing as well which made it stand out from the other acts which featured swearing quite frequently. I believe swearing does have its place in comedy, but it’s much more skillful to deliver without resorting to that style of language. You certainly don’t see people swearing in Toastmasters speeches, although the audience is of course completely different so that must be taken into account as well.
The most immediate obvious difference was that the structure of the acts was much more fluid than for Toastmasters speeches – the various stories didn’t really seem to connect and often went off at a tangent. The delivery came across as being much more off the cuff than Toastmasters where you can tell that the speeches have been prepared in advance. Although I’m sure some parts of stand up routines have also been prepared, it was intriguing watching the delivery style and how it made it feel like they were making stuff up on the spot.
There was audience interaction yesterday which I have very rarely seen apart from by the most experienced Toastmasters. I think this probably made the stand up acts a bit more engaging as you felt part of it all whereas at Toastmasters the speeches are being delivered to you.
My feeling is that the best Toastmasters speeches are more polished and cleaner all round – there were still a few rough edges with the stand up acts and more hesitations than I had expected to witness.
There seemed to be more build up to certain sections in the stand up acts whereas Toastmasters speeches are straight to the point from the off from my experience.
One thing that was similar was that they both cater for their respective audiences and give them what to hear. Toastmasters speeches are by the very nature more serious in tone and are more business presentations than for entertainment. Perhaps this explains some of the differences noted above.
Of course I have seen many more Toastmasters speeches than stand up sets so I am looking forward to seeing how my opinions change as I see more of each.
Posted by Mark Needham 
