Speech! Speech! Events

Speak Out!

The Speech! Speech! project culminates in a three-day festival in Manchester and London on 21, 22 and 23 November 2023. We are bringing together speechwriters, activists, academics, politicians, dramatists and the voices of our nation to explore speech-making’s ability to provoke, persuade and empower. Our panels will discuss the power of words and activism, and their ability to change people’s minds and lives.

Speakers include classicist and cultural historian Edith Hall, former speechwriters to David Cameron and Sir Tony Blair, Jessica Cunniffe and Philip Collins, artist and stand-up comedian Rinkoo Barpaga, MP for Norwich South Clive Lewis, poet and activist Shareefa Energy, and the Speech! Speech! team of academics Henriette van der Blom and Alan Finlayson alongside Dash Arts Artistic Director Josephine Burton.

Podcast series

Listen to our podcast series which takes us across England to hear what people want to change, how our speechwriting workshops have given people a voice, and why ancient rhetoric still works in our modern day. 

  • Listen to the podcasts (or download from your favourite podcast provider. Just search for Dash Arts Our Public House).

Speech! Speech! speechwriting workshops

We have toured England and teamed up with local arts and volunteer community groups to deliver speechwriting workshops and empower people to articulate what they want to change. We have heard speeches on houses for the homeless, better mental health provision, rent control, understanding of the menopause, supporting women’s refuges, and stopping climate change.

Workshops

  • Underground Lights, Coventry
  • St Hilda’s East Community Centre, Tower Hamlets, London
  • Her Majesty’s Prison Styal, Manchester
  • Writer’s Bloc, Redruth, Cornwall
  • Citizens UK, Brighton
  • Monday Morning Lads, Sheffield
  • Manchester Deaf Centre
  • Theatre Royal Stratford East, London
  • Bicester and Banbury College, Oxfordshire
  • Mile Cross, Norwich

Coventry / Underground Lights, 3 May 2023

Speech! Speech! teamed up with Underground Lights Community Theatre to deliver a speechwriting workshop to their members. Underground Lights is a former Belgrade Springboard Company, run for and by adults experiencing social disadvantage, homelessness and/or mental health issues in Coventry, Warwickshire and the surrounding area. They run ‘Creative Café’ sessions, where people can try new performing arts activities and meet others in a low pressure and friendly setting. Speech! Speech! joined the Creative Café on 3 May 2023:

a man delivering a speecha photo from the event

Passionate speeches were delivered on topics ranging from building more houses for the homeless, showing respect for nature, taking the conditional out of aid to pleas for tolerance and better sentences.


East London / St Hilda’s East Community Centre, 18 May 2023 

On 18 May, Speech! Speech! came to St Hilda’s East Community Centre in East London to provide a speechwriting workshop to an all-female group of locals. St. Hilda’s East has been working for the local community of Tower Hamlets and beyond for over 130 years, welcoming people of all ages and backgrounds and offering advice services, youth projects, support for parents and pre-school children, work with older people, women’s projects and volunteering placements. Speech! Speech! joined their women’s social group on 18 May 2023: 

Speech Speech event photographyA woman giving a speechevent attendees group photo
We were impressed by the speech topics (mental health services, social care provision, rent, price of food, menopause) and the development from idea to delivered speech. 

Manchester / HMP Styal, 28 June 2023

Speech! Speech! went to women’s prison HMP Styal to teach speechwriting skills to prison learners, facilitated by Novus, a social enterprise dedicated to improving lives and economic success through learning and skills, enabling offenders to build positive futures for themselves, their families and communities. Novus invited Speech! Speech! to deliver a day-long workshop with a group of learners who delivered well-argued and moving speeches on mental health provision, education, addiction, women’s refuges and prison food.