Speakola

On 26th April 2014, Megan Washington delivered a TEDx Talk that immediately trended on Twitter, and has gone on to be viewed nearly three million times. It's a beautiful public declaration about her stutter, and has so many interesting and funny moments about what a stutter is, and how it affects the life of a public performer. In her own words, Meg ends her TED Talk with a TED Sing, and it's abso...

In 2010, The Church were reluctant inductees to the ARIA Rock Hall of Fame, and reluctant speakers too. Steve Kilbey says in this interview that they hadn't planned to speak, but felt the pressure to say something as every other inductee spoke beautifully before them. What he eventually delivered was an after dinner classic, a funny, virtually off the cuff speech about Australian music, the other...

In March, I chatted to speech collector Dana Rubin for Women's History Month (there have been delays releasing the episode - my apologies, Dana). It's a great chat with a kindred spirit. Dana has created the Speaking While Female speech bank that showcases speeches by women across history and around the world.  She also edited the book Speaking While Female: 75 Extraordinary Speeches By Ameri...

My mother, Margaret Joan Wilson died on the 20th of April 2025 while I was away in Budapest. It was a big shock and a terrible day. We had a private family ceremony on 7th May and a more public celebration of life on the 8th. This speech was delivered at the second event. The text and video of the eulogy is up at  Speakola newsletter and in the Speakola library. My brother Ned did the MCing a...

Author & documentary maker John Safran talks in this episode about his eulogy for 'the People's Priest', Father Bob Maguire at St Patrick's Cathedral Melbourne in May 2023. He also discusses his latest book ' Squat' about his week squatting at Kaye West's LA Mansion and his creative life as Australia's best known 'valid troll' (to use John's own expression)  Safran has a live show&nb...

Comedian Sammy J is a Melbourne International Comedy Festival Great Debate regular. He is the interviewee for this first episode of 2025 and the feature speech is his opening argument for the negative team in 2018, ' That we must go to Mars' .  Sammy J's currently touring show is 'The Kangaroo Effect' which is on in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth in the next month or so. This years Mel...

A brief update confirming that the podcast will resume in March 2025. Episodes have already been recorded with Sammy J (on comedy debates), John Safran (eulogy for Father Bob Maguire) and Dana Rubin (speech collector, Speaking While Female).  I'm also announcing the release of our documentary 'Ange & The Boss - Puskas in Australia'. After selling out at the Greek Film Festival (second mos...

Since 2006, Andrew Moran has been a baritone with Opera Australia in Sydney. When he visited Melbourne as part of a touring production of Puccini's Tosca , Tony spoke to him about a lovely eulogy he delivered for his father, Lawrie Moran, the man who inspired him to sing, in Surrey Hills, Melbourne, on 9 November 2023.  You can read and listen to the eulogy on Speakola .  To support the podcast an...

Comedy writer Declan Fay is Tony's Speakola guest. Declan was the co-writer of Ronny Chieng International Student and the hilarious Crossbread podcast, about a Christian rap duo who hit the big time, but don't happen to be Christians (stars Megan Washington and Chris Ryan). Declan was head writer for this year's AACTA Awards, and has been part of writers' rooms for Rove, Dirty Laundry Live, Proble...

The cohost of ABC breakfast radio in Adelaide, Jules Schiller delivered a beautiful best man speech for his old comedy partner Tony Moclair when he married Kate in 2003. It's a Speakola favourite, and in this episode, Jules comes on in the aftermatch of a Married at First Sight best man speech abomination to talk about what makes a great best man speech, or wedding speech generally.  Opening audio...

For the sixth year running, Tony awards his speeches of the year on Triple R's 'The Grapevine' with Dylan Bird. This year, no Kulya who has moved on from the show after 13 years. Congrats Kulya. Thank you to Triple R for the audio. Dylan will be back in 2024 with a new show called Future Perfect. Join Speakola's mailing list and Substack Join Tony's personal writing Substack Donate to Speakola Mer...

For 15 seasons and 181 episodes, Julia Zemiro and Brian Nankervis have been the dual hosts of 'Rockwiz', bringing their wit, charm and performance energy to Australia's legendary music quiz show. In this episode Tony chats to them about what makes a good MC, and they share tips and yarns from several decades of hosting big events. In the second half, Tony's 12 year old son Jack joins the conversat...

Lahra Carey's husband Ben Cowen died in paragliding accident on 8th of January 2017. A few days later, Lahra spoke at her husband's graveside, paying tribute to 'the Ben effect' and summoning friends and mourners to 'Ben's Army'. The speech is recreated for the episode, and Lahra talks to Tony about love and loss, and the challenge of giving a eulogy in the toughest moments.  Lahra Carey's eulogy...

Dr Brendan Nelson was Liberal Party leader and Leader of the Opposition in Australia in 2007-08. After he retired from politics, he became Director of the Australian War Memorial, and has a masterly knack of sharing the stories of this country's military heroes. The feature speech here was delivered in 2014 at a Soldier On charity fundraiser. Tony's cohost for this episode, comedian and Utopia sta...

Clare Wright is an award winning author and documentary maker and a previous guest on this podcast ( Ep 46 ). This very personal speech about depression was delivered at a The Wheeler Centre event called 'Epic Fail' featuring well known authors and artists sharing their stories of failure.  Clare's description of a state of depression is so evocative that Melbourne musician Suzannah Espie wrote a...

Brendan Gale became CEO of Richmond in late 2009, and delivered this speech to the whole of the football club in the rooms in the old Punt Road grandstand in early 2010. it was a vision for the future, and it was mocked in the press at the time. Richmond had not won a final for 30 years and had competed in finals twice in the previous fifteen. Gale outlined a plan to win three premierships in ten...

Tomorrow is ANZAC Day in Australia, our most important day for commemorating and recognising the sacrifice of armed servicemen and women. To coincide, here is a re-release of speechwriter Don Watson's interview about the Paul Keating's 'Eulogy to the Unknown Soldier' delivered at the Canberra War Memorial on Remembrance Day 1993.  The occasion was the interment of the remains of one Australian sol...

A bonus episode with Walkley winning journalist Andrew Rule recorded when we chatted about his eulogy for his father (episode 44)  This episode is about Andrew's eulogy for Les Carlyon , a fellow legend of Australian journalism and writing. The speech was delivered on March 12th 2019 at Flemington racecourse, the home of Australian racing and the location for some of Carlyon's most beautiful writi...

We've just had the terrible news that Ron Joseph, Speakola's guest for E36 of this podcast, died this week aged 77. He was so accommodating with this interview, and we chatted for nearly two hours about his incredible life in footy administration and in particular the North Melbourne footy club. I'll put up some of the general (non speechy audio) from that day on the Good one, Wilson podcast , whi...

Vida Goldstein was the first woman to campaign for elected office for a national parliament in the English speaking world. It was the election of 1903, Ms Goldstein ran for the Senate in the Australian parliament, and she lost! Her launch speech was at Portland in Victoria and podcast guest Prof Clare Wright read it aloud for the Sydney Writers Festival's 'Friends, Romans, Countrymen' event in 202...

Between 2010 and 2013, Michael Cooney was speechwriter for Australia's 27th Prime Minister, Julia Gillard who was also its first female Prime Minister. Michael has written an excellent book about this experience, called ' The Gillard Project: My Thousand Days of Despair and Hope' . In this episode he talks about what a Prime Ministerial speech writer does, and shares interesting and funny yarns fr...

Andrew Rule is a Gold Walkley winning journalist and author ( Underbelly ) who grew up on a farm in Gippsland and made his way from The Maffra Spectator to the pinnacles of Australian investigative reporting. His father, Keith, spent his life felling and fashioning timber, and this eulogy is a beautiful ode to a man and his axe. It was written as a feature for The Age in 1998, written as Keith Rul...

Ruth Clare is an Australian author who wrote the award winning memoir ' Enemy — A Daughter's story of how her father brought the Vietnam War home '. She suffered the trauma of domestic violence as a child, and has been talking about trauma for a living since she became a parent herself. She has delivered three TEDx talks:  If you don't own your stories they'll own you , TEDxYouth@LGS The pain hidi...

For the fifth year running, Tony awards his speeches of the year on Triple R's 'The Grapevine' with Kulya Coulston and Dylan Bird. Thank you to Triple R for the audio. Listen to The Grapevine on Triple R Mondays 9-12am. They are on break now until 2023. This is the new hub/community base for Speakola with over 5300 subscribers, and a few of those are paying subscribers. Thanks so much! Signing up...

Laura Lexx is an acclaimed British comedian who has appeared on many television shows ('Roast Battle', 'Mock the Week') and has written a novel ' Pivot ' and a bestselling humour book ' Klopp Actually '. Her tweets imagining a steamy yet sensible love affair with Jurgen Klopp lit up Twitter for a weekend in 2020, and scored her a book deal! But this episode is about her real life wedding in 2015 t...