YOU must get the groom staggeringly drunk and then get him to the church on time. You must hand over the rings and keep the peace between the in-laws. You must deliver a risqu speech which won't upset the children. Who'd be a best man?

I have been a best man 1.2 times. On the first occasion I did the full works: help organise the stag do, hand over the rings and sign the register in church, organise the photographer's subjects ("groom's friends' ex-partner's stepchildren next, please!"), and - gulp - deliver the speech.

Only other best men truly understand the nightmare of the speech. I'd known the groom for 25 years yet when it came to penning it, sheer terror prevented me from recalling a single amusing anecdote.

Nonetheless I managed to speak for 20 minutes in front of a crowd who'd been expecting a cross between Billy Connolly and Peter Ustinov but who actually got John Major's duller brother.

My second experience was less daunting. That was because the groom had employed a team of best men to share the responsibility. We all contributed to his speech and I was on first, when the audience was most forgiving. One hour and five best men later they were becoming restless, with one or two murderously eyeing the cake knife.

I've also been a wedding usher, which is a breeze by comparison. This mainly involves stabbing guests with a flower pin before directing them to the wrong part of the church.

The role of the best man is ripe with comic potential, and a new romantic comedy, simply called The Best Man, is hoping to exploit that. It opens in cinemas a week today, just as the weddings season kicks off in earnest. Best men everywhere are fretting over their duties. They have my sympathy - and that of Rebecca Bocchetti, editor of the web site Wedding Guide UK.com.

"The best man has the worst job," she said. "Once they have got over the shock of being asked to do it, they realise they have to be quite serious and do quite a lot of work.

"It's the job with the most work apart from the chores faced by the bride, groom and their immediate families.

"First of all, they are supposed to liaise between the two families. In times past when the bride's parents paid and the two sets of parents had often not even met each other, the best man was the go-between and his role was to resolve any angst between families.

"They are also supposed to organise the infamous stag night, or week as it is now."

But worse than all that is the speech. Dave Black has been married twice and is boss of Luxury Limousines, a Stamford Bridge-based car hire firm much in demand for weddings. So he has plenty of experience of best men and their speeches.

"A good best man lies," he said, laughing. "A bad best man tells the truth.

"A wedding relies on the best man's speech. It can make or break the wedding.

"It's no good going in off the cuff. It's like somebody's putting the spotlight on you and you've got to be prepared.

"You have got to have a lot of humour in it - but steer clear of ex wives and girlfriends.

"Don't have too much to drink and don't take too many pills. Make it funny and paint a wicked picture of the groom."

What about the length of the speech? "It should last at least five minutes, but it can be longer. When people start fidgeting and coughing it's time to sit down."

Dave has a unique experience in this field: he was best man at his friend's funeral.

"My friend died abroad, in Goa, of an infection. He was a non-believer and had a non-believer's burial.

"His girlfriend asked me to give a best man's speech. I did make it lighthearted but at a funeral you mustn't upset anybody."

Two people who have seen hundreds of weddings between them are Andrew Suchecki and Keith Jackson. They both run firms that video weddings: Andrew's which is called AJS Video Productions based in Jute Road, York, and Keith's is Classic Videos of Northallerton.

"The basic ingredient of a best man's speech is to tell us about the groom's past," said Andrew.

"You can always tell if it's going to be a good one. You can tell by the best man's attitude before the ceremony. If they've got a good rapport with the audience they'll get a applause and whistles before they start."

Some best men perform little stunts. One I have witnessed at two weddings involves the best man giving out keys to all the men before the reception. Then at the start of his speech he asks for any man who has a key to the bride's bedroom to hand it in. As all the male guests walk up, key in hand, a big laugh is guaranteed.

Andrew has seen other practical jokes. "The best man tries to make the groom look foolish in front of everybody. They tend to dress them up in a ball and chain, these sort of schoolboy pranks."

Keith said it's tricky to pitch the speech just right. "One I did was in a rugby club and the best man was like Chubby Brown. Somebody told him to tone his language down. You have got to remember there are children present.

"In another one I did, the bridegroom, the bride and the best man all had radio microphones on. It was a big act with one of them impersonating Michael Jackson and the others were backing singers.

"This was a longer speech, going on for an hour, but it was quite enjoyable."

Get it wrong and you can affect the whole day, he said.

"One best man was hilarious. But then he went too far.

"He and the groom were medical students together and had spent a year in Thailand.

"He went over the top about what they had done and seen together, and the girls they had been with. The bride said 'I'm going to have to get to know my husband'.

"The best man realised he had gone over the top. In the gap between the reception and the evening do, he was with a very small group of people. It was almost as if he was being ostracised by everyone else."

At least that was not as bad as one best man who referred to the bride all the way through his speech by name - the only problem was it was the name of the groom's ex-girlfriend.

It couldn't get much worse than that... could it?

picture- Hugh Grant starred as the best man in the 1994 hit Brit comedy Four Weddings And A Funeral with Kristin Scott Thomas, left