I want to tell you about the time a legend of the silver screen and theatre showed me how you deal with an awkward audience interaction effectively. It taught me so much about where I think my focus ought to be as a presenter or public speaker and added a valuable tool to my toolkit.

A while back, I attended a Q&A with celebrated Norwegian actress, Liv Ullmann, at London’s BFI, following a screening of one of her films with Ingmar Bergman, Autumn Sonata.

Full disclosure: I generally don’t enjoy attending Q&As, because I get worried that members of the audience, instead of taking the opportunity to ask the speaker an insightful question, will opt to make a long, drawn-out observation or boast about a previous encounter with that speaker. Then I feel uncomfortable.

On this occasion, however, I couldn’t miss out on the chance to hear one of the world’s greatest living performers in conversation. And, as I expected, the post-screening chat with her interviewer was illuminating.

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Every so often two of my old school friends and I get together for drinks and dinner. We eat unhealthy food and drink overpriced whiskey. We catch up on each other’s families and complain about being middle-aged. We raise a glass to our wives and reminisce about how everything was better in the 90s (apart from bucket hats, they’ve always been wrong). 

We also make each other laugh. A lot. I laugh most when I’m with those two guys. Often the laughter comes from in-jokes that have carried on through the decades. Often, we can’t remember what started the joke or even what it refers to now – but they have become the catchphrases of our relationship. 

One of these friends works in the advertising industry. He has to marshal the needs of a client, the talent of his creative team, and the logistics of production. He told me about how sometimes an advert can often start with a clear concept, but as it’s bounced around layers of ideas get layered on top of it and slowly the concept becomes less clear. Everyone involved, as they were there at inception knows what they mean, but to the external observer the response is

“Eh?”

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