The Speaker

[megustaleer]

Anyone else watching The Speaker (http://www.bbc.co.uk/speaker/about/) ?

[Minxminnie]

I watched it. It was out of professional interest as much as anything, since I teach speaking to an audience - we call it solo talk - to younger children.
I was interested to see what "Solo Talk X Factor" would be like, and I wasn't convinced that it worked. Most of the speeches seemed rehearsed to the point of being a recitation, and they chose some very odd topics. There were a few interesting contestants, but not as many as I expected.
I liked the first girl, who talked about her gran. When she was asked why she was taking part, she said she just loves an audience and being the centre of attention!
I'm not sure I'll watch the rest of the auditions, but I'll be interested to see what it's like when the mentors get a hold of the best candidates.

[megustaleer]

Yes, I think it will get more interesting when they have less time to develop their talk into a 'routine'.

I've had a look at some of the application videos on the website, and clearly some of the London & Glasgow speakers had done further work on their presentations since then.

I thought they were quite impressive, (especially Stacey) and well worth watching - much more so than if they were singing pop songs, or spelling words they don't know the meaning of.