What makes a great orator? As an actor I’m fascinated by those individuals who, merely by their presence and their words, can hold a room, a convention hall or an entire nation spellbound. Now if only I could replicate their elusive genius.
Perhaps the secret of Britain’s greatest exponent, the wartime leader Winston Churchill, was his ability to reassure and inspire. “We shall fight on the beaches … we shall fight in the fields … we shall never surrender ...”; his understated summation of what needed to be done in Britain’s darkest hour is still spine-tingling to listen to, a full 70 years on.
With JFK it was his appearance – fresh faced, handsome, optimistic. Here was a man whose image crystallised a bright new future, a possibility that we might start again rather than being forever yoked to past mistakes and preconceptions.
Martin Luther King Jr blazed fiercely with an unshakeable sense of the racial injustices that had to be addressed, both in his country and the world at large.
Heaven knows there have been few such powerful exponents in the intervening years. Barack Obama perhaps; although he has been accused of being too professorial, too measured, too bloodless, to truly quicken the pulse.
But why would a politician nowadays want to bother with speechifying? To be seen as credible in this interconnected world, you have to tweet, or appear on YouTube, or be filmed hobnobbing with singers and celebrities.
In the UK House of Commons last Wednesday night we were briefly reminded of how much influence great oratory can still exert. The occasion was a parliamentary debate, precursor to a government motion seeking approval for military action against ISIL in Syria. I watched the conclusion on TV, where, after a full day of discussion covering all shades of political opinion, Hilary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary, got to his feet.
Paradoxically, his personal view – that the motion should be carried and air strikes sanctioned – was at direct odds with that of his own party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who was sitting next to him on the famous green leather benches. But there was something about Mr Benn – a glint in the eye, a set of the jaw, even the way he rose to his feet – that instantly quelled the undercurrent of chuntering from surrounding MPs. You could hear a pin drop.
What followed was regarded afterwards by all who were there as one of the greatest speeches seen in the parliament in recent years. Powerful, cogent, forensic, he talked for 15 minutes, passionately and eloquently laying out the arguments for and against, before summarising his own, strongly-held opinion.
We later learnt that, far from carefully honing his words over many drafts (as is so often the custom with politicians nowadays) he’d written the speech on his lap in the chamber while awaiting his turn. And it was this sense of electrifying immediacy that proved so transfixing.
He eventually sat down to a cacophony of applause that even gnarled old habitués of the Commons couldn’t recall witnessing before. The government motion may in any case have been carried by a handsome margin, but all agreed that Mr Benn’s contribution had been decisive, swaying some MPs who had remained undecided until the last minute.
As many observed in the media frenzy that followed, we might be looking at the new leader of his party and perhaps the next British prime minister. And in 15 short minutes, both Mr Benn’s profile and his reputation had been advanced far more effectively than via any number of tweets or chat show appearances
One hard-bitten satirical commentator later wrote sourly: “Whenever you hear a politician described as giving a statesmanlike performance, remember – it’s still a performance.” But in the case of Mr Benn, this view is unduly harsh. Sincerity, skill and passion coalesced last Wednesday – and those are emotions not easy to fake, however good an actor you may be.
And I should know.
Michael Simkins is an actor and writer in London
On Twitter: @michael_simkins
