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An after dinner speaker is invited to speak after a meal in order to entertain guests. A formal dinner may be an excruciating affair if one finds oneself seated beside a bore, or worse, a chatter box. The introduction of a speaker once a few glasses of wine have been consumed can be an opportunity to sigh with relief, and sit back whilst someone else makes an effort.

Invited after dinner speakers are most effective if they encourage the mood of relaxation and enable guests to digest their dinner with a few chuckles. Every orator should understand his function well. It may be to inspire, persuade or console. After dining the function is first and foremost to entertain, though some light hearted instruction might be acceptable under certain circumstances.

A sporting or social celebrity often comes to mind as an appropriate guest of honor. However, hosts need to be cautious. A successful sports person who can utter a few closed lipped banalities into a microphone after a match is not necessarily capable of a thirty minute urbane and witty speech.

Rather than risk general embarrassment a host might first ascertain tactfully from those in the know how skilled a famous sports person may be as a speaker. Diners will not be impressed by a fumbling performance that will have them shifting uncomfortably in their seats.

Being a celebrity of one sort or another will almost surely lead to invitations to attend a dinner as a guest of honor. One only has to be promoted or appear on a mindless TV show in order for the invitations to start flowing in. This can become a dilemma for a sports celebrity who may be entirely without a sense of humor and be more adept at kicking a ball than speaking.

Some people are born raconteurs. Without any training they can instinctively tell a joke with perfect timing and nuance so that an audience will fall about in laughter. Another person without those inherited aptitudes may tell exactly the same joke, downloaded word for word from the Internet and be met only by blank stares and polite murmurs. Nevertheless anyone who becomes famous, if only briefly, may be invited to speak at least once.

Preparation might start with reflection on a few serious or relevant points that might pertain to the audience in question. These can serve as a sort of insurance policy. Should no-one laugh or even smile at any jokes or witticisms the speaker can at least follow a logical theme and end by having said something relevant and purposeful. This will be some compensation if those two rows of faces remain blank and unsmiling.

It is in the delivery that the acid test will apply. Self consciousness will lift like a morning mist if a speak makes eye contact with a member of the audience at the end of the table and speaks audibly to him or her. Then it is a matter of delivering the serious points cloaked with irony, hyperbole, climax, anti-climax and other such age old ploys that have served entertaining speakers since time immemorial. Even a dead pan speaker may evoke peals of laughter if he follows these simple rules.