Warmth and light-heartedness go a long way to make your speeches enjoyable, likeable and far more memorable.

Humour energises your words and instantly grounds you as a real person, speaking important truths on the same, amusingly self-deprecating planet as the rest of us.

Humour builds trust and community in the room. Audiences respond with laughter, their whole attention and approval. It’s a win-win that makes your speech fly, and gets you re-booked time after time.

While some speakers get laughs as easily as drawing breath, most mortals find being funny on a business stage a daunting ask. It’s not just the dread of tumbleweed or hitting the wrong note, but also understandable concerns about finding the right balance between entertainment and credibility.

This is where true funny comes in to help you add just the perfect amount of the right humour to your speech, for you and your audience.

Adding true funny to your speeches is not about telling jokes, learning to be a stand-up comedian, or borrowing other people’s humorous stories off the internet. You don’t need to become someone you’re not, nor act a part.

True funny is about finding your own natural comic voice and style, and talking directly and authentically to the head, heart and funny-bones of the people in front of you.

Working with us, we’ll dig for the comic gold in your life story, your experiences, your original ideas, your triumphs, your disasters, your purpose and your passions. Before you know it, you’ll be painting the pictures, summoning the vivid characters and fine-tuning the dialogue that will fill your speech with the energy, life and colour that audiences and bookers love.

Finding your True Funny is a highly individual process and you can work with us in a number of ways, depending on your needs and availability as either a professional or leadership speaker.

In each case, we’ll start by getting to know each other with a free, no-obligation, 30-minute Zoom.

You’ll tell us all about you, your speaking practice or the one-off speech you’re doing, and how you’d like to use humour to help it go up to a whole new level. We’ll talk about the things you find amusing in entertainment, people and life and identify the very best way for us to work together to find your True Funny.

The Deep Dive for Professional Speakers

We’ll begin our work together with a two-day, one-to-one, in-person workshop.

The shape of these sessions will entirely depend on the needs and goals we established in our Zoom session. Bespoke for you. No one-size- fits-all comedy templates. Instead, it’s just us together at our office in North London, asking and answering big questions with honesty, courage and an open mind.

Throughout the two days the focus will be on YOU and the unique tones, shades and rhythms that make up your voice as a speaker.

We’ll employ the dramatic tools of story structure, protagonist’s journey, setting, character, action and dialogue. We’ll turn throwaway anecdotes into captivating stories dig deep into your memory and find relatable connections in your past triumphs and your biggest screw-ups. Because no one ever made an audience laugh by telling them how marvellous they are.

By the end of the Professional Deep Dive you’ll have a comic and dramatic Master Plan to work from, a natural icebreaker, a strong, connective ending and a great sense of what your true funny is, and should be, going forward.

This is just the beginning. Being truly funny as a professional speaker takes preparation, practise and perseverance. With us, it’s a rewarding, empowering and deeply enjoyable process. And you’re always in control at every stage.

The Deep Dive for Leadership Speakers

If you’re an occasional or novice leadership speaker, keynote addresses can feel like a tall mountain to climb. True Funny is here to help guide you through the entire process. We’ll advise on everything from ideas and content brainstorming, to scripting and performance. We have experienced speechwriters at hand, and designers who can create powerful visuals. Your finished speech will be purposeful. polished, warmly likeable and ready to rock at your company event.

Diving Deeper

We offer a range of follow-up sessions to build-on and add to the initial work.

1-day in-person
This could simply be a continuation of work undertaken in our Professional Deep Dive or perhaps a day taking an alternative view of larger, structural issues in your speech or aspects of presentation and performance. It might even see us considering how to re-work another speech to fit with the new warmer, funnier speaker you’re busily creating. The choice is always yours.

2-hour zoom session
These are short, sharp, self-contained looks at a single issue, such as working on another story, looking at a new icebreaker or re-tuning your master speech for a specific occasion or audience.

Bespoke programmes
We’re more than happy to devise extended engagements over longer timeframes with either Professional or Leadership speakers. We can also organise work with multiple participants from an organisation or company looking to up their game across the whole leadership team. Please get in touch with your needs and we can talk.

Our work is geared to find your true funny. We’ll dramatise, shape, polish and test your stories to make them absolutely right for YOU.

I’m Paul Dornan – true funny founder, a hugely experienced and award-wining TV, film and radio, comic and dramatic writer. In over 25 years working with words, people and audiences I’ve created TV series that have sold globally, won a British Comedy Award and written a Sunday Times Number 1 best-selling comedy book.

I’ve written shows for the BBC and ITV and sold to over 100 countries. I worked on a film that made £150 million at the box office. I co-created the British Comedy Award-winning ‘Big Impression’ with Alistair McGowan and developed projects with the producers of award-winners like ‘Men Behaving Badly’, ‘Billy Eliot’ and ‘Sherlock’.

A naturally friendly and collaborative person, I’ve worked closely with a huge variety of talented stars too: Barry Humphries, Caroline Aherne, Tim Spaul, Ailsing Bea, Lenny Henry, Suranne Jones, Hugh Bonneville… The list is long…

Away from page and screen, I’ve worked with a range of agencies on comms, writing styles and brand narrative. I’ve lead creative brainstorming and input on a wide range of international projects. I’ve often collaborated with the business-comedy guru Neil Mullarkey, including running creative writing sessions for clients including BUPA.

This mix of experiences has left me uniquely well-placed to understand and help you meet the needs of a business world that values personality, authenticity and storytelling ever more highly. I very much look forward to meeting you.

Whether you have a question, or are just looking to connect, we’d love to hear from you.

You can either call Paul on +44 (0) 7788 107 163 or send an email to book your free 30-minute zoom and get the ball rolling.

hello@truefunny.co.uk