Movies about movies rarely succeed, just as theatre about theatre usually falls flat. Industry insiders love them, and so they keep getting performed and filmed, but the general public doesn’t embrace them as a rule. Noises Off, which is my personal choice for the funniest movie of all time, a movie about a play about putting on a play, doesn’t even make it in Christopher Reeve’s top 10 movies – it’s number 16 on his list. Superman did much better box office, and that was not a work – or performance – of genius.

In the same way, books that are commentaries on books, like Tristram Shandy, or self-constituting works like e. e. cummings’ poetry,or ironical treatments of the very thing they are attempting, like Spinal Tap, also seem rarely to escape cult status.

So my second thought, when I was struck with the apparently brilliant idea of creating a new speech about a speech coach giving a speech, was that it would never work. After the first burst of enthusiasm I usually have over a new idea, I recalled Noises Off and figured that the speech-about-a-speech wouldn’t fly.

When I coach speakers, and especially professional speakers, about creating great experiences for audiences, self-referential stories often come up. Speakers remember a time when they were giving a speech and something amazing-funny-moving happened. Of course; it’s their business and their passion. And so they want to talk about that moment in the speech.

But those anecdotes are rarely the best ones to relate in a speech. Audiences don’t particularly need to hear that theirs isn’t your first rodeo, and that something really amazing happened at some other speech – not the current one. It’s not that audiences are petty, really. It’s just that you don’t want to take them out of the current moment, the present magic, and remind them that you’ve done this many times before.

The relationship between a speaker and her audience is something fundamental, something primal, and you don’t want to do anything to detract from the moment, the message, your voice, and the audience. When you make a connection with an audience, or an individual in an audience – because an audience is simply a collection of individuals – it’s more powerful if you don’t say, “naturally, I’ve had many such connections before.” We’re grown ups, we know it, but don’t remind us in the moment.

It’s a tendency I have to watch in my own speeches – the habit of saying, “As I often tell audiences like this one….” Don’t do it, Nick!

But still, I can’t quite let go of the idea that a speech about speaking by a speech coach commenting on what’s happening as it’s happening could be fun. And the running commentary I would give about the process could be an entertaining way to teach a few insights about public speaking.

I sometimes get the reaction when I give a speech that, “of course you can give a decent speech; you’re a speech coach.” But being able to teach the process and doing it are two completely different things. They’re not necessarily connected. I’d liked to be judged just as a speaker, but of course that’s not going to happen. If you get into the ring, you have to be ready to take your punches. Audiences are naturally going to judge a speech coach differently than someone who talks about something else.

So what do you think? Should a speech coach attempt a speech that is a commentary on speaking as I’m giving it? And what would that look like?