Gyles Brandreth

Gyles Brandreth is a writer, broadcaster, 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 veteran of QI and Have I Got News For You, a reporter on The One Show and a regular on Just a Minute, his many books include The Oscar Wilde Murder Mysteries and the No 1 best-seller: The 7 Secrets of Happiness.

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.

Type Of Speaker

Entertainment After Dinner Event Hosts Politics & Current Affairs Speaker

More About Gyles Brandreth

A prolific broadcaster (in programmes ranging from Just a Minute and Wordaholics to QI and Have I Got News for You), an acclaimed interviewer (principally for the Sunday Telegraph), 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).

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 online course on Happiness is available from Gravy For The Brain together with a course co-authored with his son, rhetoric coach and barrister, Benet Brandreth, on Mastering Public Speaking. 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 2016 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), 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. At the end of 2016, he succeeded the late Duke of Westminster as Chancellor of the University of Chester.