GYLES BRANDRETH
After Dinner Speaker and Broadcasting Personality
After Dinner Speaker Gyles Brandreth's varied career has ranged from playing the part of Baron Hardup in Cinderella to being appointed a Lord Commissioner of the Treasury in John Major's government.
A former Oxford Scholar, President of the Oxford Union and MP for the City of Chester, Gyles has even starred in his own award-winning musical revue in London’s West End.
A prolific broadcaster (in programmes ranging from Just a Minute to Have I Got News for You), an acclaimed interviewer (mainly for the Sunday Telegraph), a children’s author, novelist and biographer, his best-selling diary, Breaking the Code, was described as ‘By far the best political diary of recent years, far more perceptive and revealing than Alan Clark’s’ (The Times) and ‘Searingly honest, wildly indiscreet, and incredibly funny’ (Daily Mail).
Most recently Gyles has completed two acclaimed royal biographies: Philip & Elizabeth: Portrait of a Marriage and Charles & Camilla: Portrait of a Love Affair.
As a performer, he has been seen most recently in ZIPP! ONE HUNDRED MUSICALS FOR LESS THAN THE PRICE OF ONE at the Duchess Theatre and on tour throughout the UK, and
even as Malvolio and the Sea Captain in TWELFTH NIGHT THE MUSICAL at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
Gyles Brandreth is one of Britain’s busiest after-dinner speakers and award ceremony hosts. He has won awards himself, and been nominated for awards, as a public speaker, novelist, children’s writer, broadcaster, political diarist (Channel Four), journalist (British Press Awards), theatre producer (Olivier), and businessman (British Tourist Authority Come to Britain Trophy).
He is married to the writer and publisher Michèle Brown, with whom he founded the award-winning Teddy Bear Museum
based in Stratford-upon-Avon and co-curated the exhibition of 20th century children’s authors at the National Portrait Gallery.
Gyles is also a trustee of the British Forces Foundation, whose Patron is the Prince of Wales, and a former chairman and now vice-president of the National Playing Fields Association, whose Patron is the Queen and whose President is the Duke of Edinburgh.
Gyles' colourful forebears include George R Sims (who was the highest-paid journalist of his
day and who wrote the ballad Christmas Day in the Workhouse) as well as Jeremiah Brandreth (the last man in England to be beheaded for treason). His great-great-grandfather, Benjamin Brandreth, promoted ‘Brandreth’s Pills’ (a medicine that cured everything!) and was a pioneer of
the art of modern advertising as well as being a New York state senator.
Today, Gyles Brandreth has family living in New York, Maryland, South Carolina and California. He is London correspondent for “Up to the Minute” on CBS News and his books published in the United States include the New York Times best-seller, The Joy of Lex and, most recently, Philip & Elizabeth: Portrait of a Royal Marriage.
Known for the colourful jumpers he wore on countless game shows and on TV-am in the 1970s and 1980s, he became the MP for the City of Chester in 1992.
In 1997, with politics behind him, he returned to a career in writing and broadcasting. He is the children's publisher with Andre Deutsch and editorial consultant to Whitaker's Almanack.
With his wife Michele, he is the founder of the award-winning Teddy Bear Museum in Stratford-upon-Avon. He is a former chairman and now vice-president of the National Playing Fields Association, the national trust of recreational space.
A member of Trevor McDonald's Better English campaign, the founder of the National Scrabble Championships, he has featured in the Guinness Book of Records for making the longest-ever after-dinner speech - lasting twelve and a half hours.
`Searingly honest, wildly indiscreet and incredibly funny' -Daily Mail
`A deadpan comic to rival Jack Dee' -Daily Telegraph
`Not merely, like all the best after-dinner speakers, does he know how to spin a yarn - he has a touching access to the secrets of the human heart.' -The Times
`If ever I hear a better speaker, I'll be surprised. Brandreth is brilliant.' -Daily Express
ONE MAN SHOW - WIT'S END...
GYLES BRANDRETH, writer, raconteur, sometime actor and MP, presents a personal - and wonderfully idiosyncratic - A to Z of wit and wordplay. From Woody Allen to Oscar Wilde, from Noel Coward to Zero Mostel, with unexpected anecdotes and candid tales from his time in politics, the theatre and TV, Brandreth explores what makes us laugh - and why.
Order the Book
Breaking the Code by Gyles Brandreth
A fascinating read in which Brandreth discusses his time at Westminster, from finding a seat, the general election and his arrival as a "new boy", to his duties as a Tory Whip in a time when the Tory majority was steadily declining. Gossip and intrigue are combined with an all-star cast which includes Princess Diana and Bill Clinton. Brandreth also exposes the inside story of the Whips' Office, previously protected by an unwritten rule that what goes on inside remains confidential forever after.