I keep forgetting that this blog can be about performance skills as well as, you know, demos. Here we go (this really starts around the 40 second mark):

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/af8af15b6c/obamacare-or-shut-up-with-billy-eichner-and-olivia-wilde

Not science. Not a demonstration. But look at the range of ways Wilde says ‘Shut up!’. Impressive.

ScienceDemo blogger Elin Roberts has an exercise/game (once memorably, if incongruously, played in the library of the Royal Institution) called ‘Sandeels.’ The construction is that all participants are puffins, and that puffins have very limited vocabulary and topics of conversation. Specifically, the only thing they ever discuss – and the only word they know – is ‘sandeels.’ Players take a card which specifies an emotion or mood, and have to perform that emotion using only the word ‘sandeels.’ Ian Simmons’ ‘cantankerous’ puffin is a sight to behold.

These sorts of exercises are useful for exploring our range as performers, and they help us think about the details of how we deliver demonstrations.