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 regular on This Morning, and since the 1980s one of the mainstays of Just a Minute on BBC Radio 4. His most recent book is an acclaimed biography of Queen Elizabeth II: Elizabeth: an intimate portrait – an immediate Sunday Times No 1 best-seller.

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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. 

Since 2022 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 for 2024; 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, 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.    

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