Biography — GYLES BRANDRETH

BIOGRAPHY

Gyles Brandreth is a writer, broadcaster, actor, former MP and Lord Commissioner of the Treasury, now Chancellor of the University of Chester and one of Britain's most sought-after award ceremony hosts and after-dinner speakers. A star of *Celebrity Gogglebox,* a veteran of QI and *Have I Got News For You*, a reporter on *The One Show*, a presenter on *Pointless,* a guest on *Would I Lie to You?* and *Sunday Brunch,* a regular on *This Morning,* and since the 1980s one of the mainstays of *Just a Minute* on BBC Radio 4, his recent books include a biography of Queen Elizabeth II: *Elizabeth: an intimate portrait -* an immediate *Sunday Times* No 1 best-seller.
His many other books include an acclaimed childhood memoir, a *Sunday Times* best-seller in 2021, *Odd Boy Out,* as well nine detective novels (among them *The Oscar Wilde Murder Mysteries*), biographies (notably *Philip: The Final Portrait*) and three other recent best-sellers: *The 7 Secrets of Happiness*; a celebration of good English, punctuation, spelling and grammar, *Have You Eaten Grandma?;* and his anthology of poetry to learn by heart, *Dancing by the Light of the Moon.*
Recently he has been appearing on stage with Dame Judi Dench at the Gielgud Theatre in London, at Hampton Court Palace and at the Royal Albert Hall, with more dates planned; on TV with Sheila Hancock in *Great Canal Journeys;* and on tour throughout the country with his one-man show. As a podcaster, he is Gold Award Winner at the British Podcast Awards. With his daughter Aphra Brandreth MP, he co-hosts the Commonwealth Poetry Podcast, celebrating poetry and the Commonwealth, launched with HM Queen Camilla in 2022. In 2023, he launched a new podcast, *Rosebud,* a weekly conversation with interesting and remarkable people all about their very first memories - from Dame Judi Dench to Sir Keir Starmer.

Gyles Brandreth

A former Oxford Scholar, President of the Oxford Union and MP for the City of Chester, Gyles Brandreth’s career has ranged from being a Whip and Lord Commissioner of the Treasury in John Major’s government to starring in his own award-winning musical revue in London’s West End.

A prolific broadcaster (in programmes ranging from Just a Minute and Wordaholics to Celebrity Gogglebox, Pointless, Sunday Brunch, QI, Would I Lie To You? and Have I Got News for You), an award-winning interviewer and columnist (principally for the Telegraph and Daily Mail), a novelist, children’s author and biographer, he has published two volumes of diaries: Breaking the Code: Westminster Diaries (‘By far the best political diary of recent years, far more perceptive and revealing than Alan Clark’s’, The Times) and Something Sensational to Read in the Train: The Diary of a Lifetime (‘Witty, warm-hearted and deeply poignant’, Daily Mail).

He is the author of several acclaimed royal biographies, including Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait and Philip: The Final Portrait, and a series of Victorian detective stories, The Oscar Wilde Murder Mysteries, seven books now published in twenty-two countries around the world. His recent Sunday Times best-sellers include Word Play, a celebration of the English language, and The 7 Secrets of Happiness – No 1 on Amazon. His one-man shows have won multiple five star reviews at the Edinburgh Fringe and tour regularly throughout the UK.

As a performer, Gyles Brandreth has been seen in the West End in Zipp! One hundred musicals for less than the price of one at the Duchess Theatre and on tour throughout the UK, and as Malvolio and the Sea Captain in Twelfth Night: The Musical at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. In 2011/12 he played Lady Bracknell in a new musical version of The Importance of Being Earnest and in 2017 appeared in Hamlet at the Park Theatre in London.

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 (Sony and Royal Television Society), podcaster (Best Entertainment Podcast), political diarist (Channel Four), journalist (British Press Awards), theatre producer (Olivier), and businessman (British Tourist Authority Come to Britain Trophy). He has featured on This Is Your Life and Desert Island Discs and is a former chairman and now vice-president of the National Playing Fields Association. In 2017 he succeeded the late Duke of Westminster as Chancellor of the University of Chester.

He is married to writer and publisher Michèle Brown, with whom he co-curated the exhibition of twentieth century children’s authors at the National Portrait Gallery and founded the award-winning Teddy Bear Museum now based at Newby Hall in North Yorkshire. His son, Benet Brandreth KC, is a barrister, award-winning speaker, authority on rhetoric – www.artofrhetoric.com - and author of two acclaimed novels about Shakespeare's lost years: The Spy of Venice and The Assassin of Verona. His daughter, Aphra Brandreth MP, is an environmental economist, podcaster and politician - since 4 July 2024, the Member of Parliament for Chester South & Eddisbury. With his daughter Saethryd Charity Brandreth and grandson Rory, he is the author of a compendium of family games, The Lost Art of Having Fun. With Saethryd, he has also created Novelty Knits, a celebration of the colourful jumpers he was noted for wearing on TV in the 1970s and 1980s. Some of his favourite sweaters are now available at www.gylesandgeorge.com

Gyles Brandreth’s forebears include George R Sims (the highest-paid journalist of his day, who wrote the ballad Christmas Day in the Workhouse) and 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 modern advertising and a New York state senator. Gyles Brandreth has been London correspondent for “Up to the Minute” on CBS News and his books published in the USA include the New York Times best-seller, The Joy of Lex.