Jason Manford 

I'd love to spend some time with Jason. I always feel that he's a 'good guy' on and off stage. He's very likeable as a comedian with stories that we can all relate to and engage with. 

In this blog we look at the use of status and physicality. Enjoy the clip and then be sure to come back to the blog and apply this to your next presentation.

Status 

Jason has a very laid back approach - a natural storyteller, and very relatable in his style. Like Mark Watson, you feel like you could be sat opposite him in a coffee shop. He adopts a 'High status' approach, meaning his relationship with the audience and 'the scales', is very much communicated as if he's proving a point.

When it comes to our role as communicators, a high status approach is necessary in teaching or in sales, because you are yielding the audience to take on board what you are saying. High status bleeds with confidence, authority and passion. 

Yet in some circumstances,...

I'm excited to be writing this blog, just a few weeks after I had the chance to spend some time with Al backstage at a The Princes Hall in Aldershot. I even got to sit in the wing and observe the show from the side. What you see on stage with Al, is a carefully thought through, yet combined with skill-fully ad libbed moments of his character, 'The Pub Landlord'.

What fascinates me most about Al is that this character has been years in the making, and is quite the opposite of the Al I met backstage. (A genuinely nice guy who was super helpful as I picked his brains about his ability to ad lib huge laughs from some simple direct questions!) 

You might be wondering why I've chosen a character act to help us think about communication. I believe there's lots we can learn from this and I've highlighted three points below.

Enjoy this clip of Al in action. 

Everything is BIG

The Pub Landlord is a big character. Full of charisma. Bold, brash and unashamed. I...