Beyond words - Jonathan Miller on non-verbal communication

Dr Jonathan Miller leads actors' workshop

The author, broadcaster and director Jonathan Miller conducted a workshop on non-verbal communication at Lady Mitchell Hall on 30 January. Dr Miller, a Cambridge medical graduate who first came to fame in the Cambridge Footlights production Beyond the Fringe, has directed theatre and opera productions across the world.

Speaking to a packed audience, Dr Miller took pains to explain that "body language", as such, is a misnomer. There are no grammatical rules or agreed structures for the kinds of communication we are all constantly performing with gestures and expressions, and yet these non-verbal messages convey a mass of information, intentionally or otherwise.

Good acting involves not only the convincing delivery of spoken lines, but also a natural set of physical movements. Using four student actors from the English Faculty, Dr Miller demonstrated how everyday situations such as using a lift, hailing a taxi or simple conversation require us to adopt a range of expressions, gestures and body movements. These may be in order to disguise embarrassment, or to check that one's interlocutor is paying attention, or they may betray an unspoken boredom or cynicism. Such communicative add-ons are the product of complex brain functions at several levels, but they are what make each of us truly human.

Dr Miller and his actors performed before a large and appreciative audience for almost an hour and a half, providing a rare mix of entertainment and erudition.

Jonathan Miller - a man of many parts
Born in London, the son of a distinguished child psychiatrist, he was educated at St Paul's School, read natural sciences at St John's College, Cambridge and qualified as a doctor of medicine in 1959. Whilst at university, Jonathan Miller appeared as a member of the Cambridge Footlights and subsequently accepted an invitation to co-author and appear in Beyond the Fringe with Alan Bennett, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. This now legendary satirical review opened at the Edinburgh Festival in 1960 and later transferred to London and New York.

Thereafter, Jonathan Miller's career has been inextricably linked with the stage and he has directed productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal Court Theatre and as Artistic Director of the Old Vic. He has also worked at many of the world's leading opera houses and will return to the Royal Opera House for a new production of Don Giovanni and to revive his production of Cosi Fan Tutte.

Jonathan Miller is a frequent lecturer on a wide variety of subjects. In 1994 he gave a series of lectures at the National Gallery entitled From the Look of Things which he subsequently delivered at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and at the Arts Institute of Chicago.

Jonathan Miller was awarded the honorary title of Doctor of Letters by Cambridge University and in 1997, was elected a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in London. In 1998 he was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh. He is also a Foreign Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.