THERE cannot surely have been a better evening's entertainment in town – not even at the nearby Malvern Theatres – than the latest meeting of Malvern Speakers club.

Demand for speaking slots was such that for the first time there were four main speeches instead of the usual three, and the quality was such that any one would have been worthy of the vote for Best Speech.

Taken together, they added up to a veritable four-movement symphony of words. It was led off by Cate Cody's allegro caninis - a delightful and expressive account of her life with dogs, which began with her pulling herself upright as a baby by grabbing the jaw of one of her parent's 36 Great Danes!

Next came Sarah Colloby's presto linguistico, a high-speed discussion of the joys of regional dialects. This she illustrated with impressions of Brummy, Scouse, Geordie and other accents, including BBC plum-in-the-mouth, that Rory Bremner would have been proud of.

Then followed Allan Roberts' adagio pensoroso entitled Use Your Brains. This was a more serious and well-researched piece about the human brain and how we use – or rather under-use -what nature has given us. Among the many startling statistics he quoted was that on average we use just 1% of our brains' potential.

The final offering - andante giocoso perhaps – was Hilary Benoit's entertaining account of packing for travel, under the title How To Prevent the Plane from |Running Over Your Luggage. Prepared at short notice, and delivered without notes, this included a live packing, before the audience, of a fortnight's holiday needs into a handbag, a virtuoso performance which doubtless helped to clinch the night's Best Speech award!

Travel was also the subject of the impromptu table topics session conducted by Stan Cantrill. He invited speakers to recall memorable recent journeys, good or bad. Six contestants took us to destinations as exotic as Texas, Korea, Russia and New Zealand and even Croydon, but it was John Day's account of a trip to Brecon, to take part (as a bassist) in the late Acker Bilk's final concert, that won the company's vote for its sincerity and emotional content.

The club's next meeting will take the form of a Christmas dinner (with verbal entertainments!) at the Mount Pleasant Hotel, Malvern at 7.pm on Tuesday, December 9.

COLIN JACKSON