Pass the mic

This is where the unknowns come in.
Much as in other shadowy showbiz cul-de-sacs — voiceovers, extras, being big in Japan — there are a host of people, nonentities in the wider world, who’ve become superstars in this rarefied field. Take Bob ‘The Cat’ Bevan, an ex-Barnsley goalie, now reincarnated as a sporting blacktie event speaker and host; David Gunson, a former air-traffic controller, who turns up at function after function to tell hilarious horror stories of a life spent pushing tin; and David Welsh, former chief executive of the Royal Parks and Gardens, who fills people in on the most secluded places for public sex in Hyde Park — ‘not for the faint-hearted’, warns Morley. Each charge around £1,000 – £3,500 a time and, says Morley, ‘they’re great storytellers. They can really work an audience and are in constant demand, doing at least an event a week.’

There are also a bunch of the didn’t-you-used-to-bes now enjoying a fruitful afterlife as speakers. One of Morley’s biggest draws, for example, is former Manchester United manager Tommy Docherty. ‘Tommy’s great,’ he enthuses, ‘because he can do motivational or pure showbiz anecdote. He’s one of our most prolific, doing up to five days a week and he’s cheap, bless him, around £1,250. He’s practically booked up to the end of the year.’

Even George Best, despite his problems, is still one of the UK’s most in-demand speakers, though, uniquely among Morley’s charges, he comes with a health warning: ‘We say we can’t be held responsible if (a) he doesn’t arrive (unlikely), (b) he arrives drunk (quite possible), (c) he becomes drunk (quite likely).

Morley imagines that in the future, our wedged-up sports stars simply won’t need the money. ‘And frankly,’ he adds, ‘I’m doubtful whether someone like David Beckham could do it anyway. I mean, can he string three words together?’

The disasters Sternberg will admit to are few — no matching Rabbi Lionel Blue up with the Pork Butchers’ Association, for instance. ‘The major problems arise where clients insist on getting people from TV and don’t heed our advice,’ he says. ‘Like Ruby Wax, who appears to be this ebullient, outgoing, vivacious person onscreen. We booked her for a corporate dinner at a Park Lane hotel and she was so terrified, she refused to come out of her room. She was all right in the end, but she took a lot of gentle persuasion.’ Another contentious area is swearing: ‘We usually plead with people not to use profanity at all,’ says Sternberg. ‘Then they get up and can’t help themselves. You only have to offend one important person and you’ve got a diplomatic incident.’

There was also an occasion where one
very well-known female presenter, having addressed a gathering, ended up in bed with two of the delegates. ‘There are probably many more such instances,’ offers Sternberg. ‘But I’m blissfully ignorant of them.’ Which could be one of the reasons why the after-dinner speaker is unlikely to be supplanted by any computer-generated multimedia jiggery-pokery in the near future.

‘It’s not really made any impact,’ reckons Morley. ‘Some people use multimedia backdrops, but the speaking thing is actually booming. Sternberg has booked De La Guarda-style aerobatic troupes. ‘and someone phoned today and asked for an elephant’, but for those who don’t want to be drenched in water or run the risk of Blue Peter-type defecation scenarios, the good, old-fashioned speaker is still the best.

But isn’t the ‘old-fashioned’ bit a giveaway? Isn’t the whole idea of after-dinner, with its connotations of dickey-bows and frilly shirts, a naff anachronism in the bright new dotcom start-up age? ‘Actually,’ say Sternberg, ‘a lot of dotcom companies want old-schoolers in an ironic way, like Keith Harris and Orville, who, incidentally, can be very blue. We have to watch them.

So he’s not afraid of Tarby, Norden and Monkhouse’s heirs refusing to pick up the baton?
‘Well, there are some people who flatly refuse, like Eddie Izzard,’ he says. ‘Or Jeremy Paxman, who’s deliberately priced himself out of the market. But there are others whose resistance soon breaks down.’

There follows a pause worthy of the most eloquent after-dinner practitioners. ‘Especially when they see the money they can make.‘