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Drawing on his own grim and terrifying experiences as a public speaker, Basil Boothroyd takes us on a comic journey through an era when the likes of the Women’s Institute and the Rotary Club were still the social hubs of the nation and required a steady stream of guest speakers to keep their members entertained. Addressing everyone from corporate clients at black-tie shindigs to the inmates of Pentonville Prison, he was asked to expound on a dizzying range of topics. While masquerading this as a how-to book, Boothroyd willfully loses us in a confusion of slapstick asides and self-effacing comic digressions as he unsuccessfully attempts to navigate the pitfalls of a thankless profession. An engagingly sordid tale of dingy hotels, bad transportation, self-doubts, hecklers, drunks, technical snafus, misjudged audiences, and woefully unsuitable material.