Although oratory is generally assumed to be dying, dead or irrelevant to the new technologies of communication, hundreds of people are, in fact, making speeches every day of the week. In the fourth of five programmes on the state of the art, Melvyn Bragg talks to some of those who regularly make public speeches as part of their job: in the law courts, in churches and chapels, at sales conferences and on the professional after-dinner circuits.
Researcher SALLIE DA VIES Producer ANNE SLOMAN