Have you ever read a badly written book or short story, where the author had a fine idea, but just didn't manage to pull it off?
You'll just have to try this out and see if you can pull it off.
Note, when I say "try it out", I mean on your friends. Practice talks.
I predict that this will be a growing trend. Cooking magazines and DIY magazines now often use a story-telling format. Instead of just plunking down on the page the recipe for roasting a chicken that was found to give the best results in the testing labs, nowadays the author tells a story -- and it's a personal story, told in the first person. It's a journey of discovery... to arrive at the best recipe for roasting chicken! It sounds funny, but actually you do get drawn in.
Also, consider the new field of creative nonfiction. Wikipedia defines it: "Creative nonfiction (also known as literary nonfiction or narrative nonfiction) is a genre of writing that uses literary styles and techniques to create factually accurate narratives."
You can laugh at this too, and see it as part of the general shift toward egocentrism, where the researcher-author has to be at the center of everything. The author can't just expound about the material, making it interesting and understandable. Nooo, he has to make everything about himself!
But if you've read any good creative nonfiction, you'll see that when the author can pull it off, it's wonderful.
Jake was concerned about a distracted member of the audience missing a key bit and therefore being confused for the whole rest of the talk. That can easily happen in a traditional talk structure as well.
Hopefully, if you are a researcher who is interested in experimenting with more novel structures, you are also someone who knows how to use, or can learn how to use, techniques performers in the fine arts have learned, of getting the audience's attention before the critical point that must not be missed. For example, a small joke to wake everybody up. Sometimes reducing your volume at a certain place can have a mesmerizing effect. Etc.
Personally I think the key to not overdoing the novel stuff is to make sure that it doesn't detract from the science. The takeaway message needs to be "the science that was presented is fascinating", not "the scientist put on a great performance". In other words, the science needs to take center stage, as opposed to you taking center stage.