After Dinner Speakers: David Strassman, Seal, Tina Knight

Thanks to Chuck, David Strassman is the ventriloquist who has everything, including David Copperfield's ex-manager. In Australia, he plays to 2,000 seat theatres, and he has recently finished a national tour of Britain and South Africa. He will also be recording his own TV chat show in which he will ask the sweet questions and Chuck will dig up the first. Last year he became the first ventriloquist for 25 years to have his own solo show in the West End. A hatful of rave reviews support his bullish claim that he is dragging a long-dead art form into the modernage. Interviewing Chuck is almost as perilous as watching him from the front row. In the dressing room after his London show, Strassman talked amiably enough while the dummy sat glowering and motionless on the shelf. Strassman was explaining what is so revolutionary about this distasteful creature. Until now ventriloquism has been whathe calls "presentational". The two parties have just sat there exchanging wisecracks. But Chuck's relationship with Strassman is complex and theatrical. Strassman divides his time between touring with his act and disappearing to live in the wilderness.