Gyles Brandreth has been a working journalist and columnist since 1969 when he had his first column in Honey magazine. Since then he has been a columnist for Woman, Woman’s Own, TV Times and his ‘Alphabet Soup’ column was widely syndicated in the US. In the UK he has contributed to magazines as varied as the New Statesman, the Spectator and Dogs Today.
As a reporter, he worked first for the Manchester Evening News in 1971, under the editorship of Brian Redhead. Since then he has written for every national newspaper in Britain and is a regular contributor to The Times, Telegraph and Daily Mail. From 1997 to 2002 he was editor-at- large of the Sunday Telegraph Review and nominated for a British Press Award as Interviewer of the Year. He has a monthly column in The Oldie: 'Gyles Brandreth's Diary'.
He has travelled around the world interviewing princes, prime ministers, presidents, authors, artists and entertainers, and a selection of his acclaimed interviews is published in Brief Encounters.
In 2004 he succeeded Lynda Lee-Potter as host of the Daily Mail Literary Lunches. In 2015 he succeeded Sir Terry Wogan as host of The Oldie magazine’s Oldie of the Year Awards.