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Trudie Styler speaks out to revive the lost art of oratory
Louise Jury, Chief Arts Correspondent03.04.09
The art of oratory is being killed off by computers, according to Trudie Styler.
But the actress and green campaigner, who is married to musician Sting, is doing her best to revive the discipline by recruiting speakers such as Bill Clinton and Gore Vidal to champion the cause.
They and others appear in a television programme Yes We Can … The Lost Art Of Oratory on BBC2 this Sunday. It serves as a prelude to a nationwide BBC competition starting next week to find Britain's best young speaker.
Styler was inspired to make the programme with her film company Xingu when she first heard Barack Obama speak about four years ago. She said: “He's a very powerful, charismatic, persuasive speaker.”
Her interest was further piqued by Robert Harris's novel Imperium and the way it described the orations of Roman lawgiver Cicero.
But she feared that public-speaking was a dying art and said: “With all the screen time our children have the power of their voices has been neglected. I would like to see debating come back into the education system.”
Styler said British schools should adopt American “show and tell” sessions which get US children talking in public at a young age.
She also cites some unusual examples of great orators. “For all his effing and blinding, Bob Geldof is an exceptional speaker,” she said.
Bill Clinton attributes his own oratorical skills to his love of music and listening to preacher Billy Graham and to Martin Luther King, the civil rights campaigner, when younger.
Styler has reportedly always used any excuse to practise her own public speaking, frequently entertaining dinner guests with eloquent addresses during meals.
Six of the best
David Lloyd George's "pinnacle of sacrifice" recruitment speech in 1914.
President Bill Clinton's confession of Oval office misbehaviour with the words: "This matter is between me, my wife and our daughter - and our God."
Michael Portillo's "Mea Culpa" speech following his loss of the Enfield Southgate seat in the 1997 election.
Politician Leo Amery quoting Cromwell in his ringing denunciation of Neville Chamberlain in 1940: "In the name of God, go."
Leon Trotsky's 1917 speech to the centre and Right wing of the Socialist Revolutionaries consigning them to "the dustbin of history".
US president John F Kennedy's rousing 1963 speech in West Berlin when he declared "Ich bin ein Berliner".
* Speeches selected by Brian McArthur in in Book Of 20th Century Speeches.
