Set the record straight

Fast talk

A fascinating look at the strange phenomenon of competitive fast-talking in the late 1980s.

The genetic lottery gifts some people with strange and unexplainable talents. Some of these abilities are extraordinarily useful – like athletic skill or sky high intelligence – while others seem like useless evolutionary leftovers. The privileged few are able to parlay their gifts into a career, but for others, these special skills only lead to fifteen minutes of fame. But fifteen minutes of fame is a dismissive term that doesn’t account for all the hard work that leads up to a defining moment, and perhaps we should find a new way to describe people with unique and special talents.

Jobie Nam’s Fast Talk is the story of a man who experienced short-lived notoriety, a man from England who could talk really fast, a man who dreamed about competing and found that he was capable of more than he thought. The aforementioned man is Steve Woodmore, a salesman from England who saw the world’s fastest talker on TV and wondered if he could speak faster than him.