Gyles Brandreth

The keynote speaker Gyles Brandreth, a former Oxford Scholar, President of the Oxford Union and MP for the City of Chester has gone from 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.

Gyles Brandreth is a broadcaster and an acclaimed interviewer, primarily for the Sunday Telegraph. His broadcasting programs include ‘Just a minute’ and ‘Have I Got News for You’. Gyles is also a performer, he has recently been seen in Zipp! One hundred musicals for less than the price of one at London’s Duchess Theatre, and on tour throughout the UK. In 2010 he was on tour with his own one-man show, The One to One show, in Edinburgh. He also opened his play, Wonderland, in 2010.

In addition to his performing, the talented speaker Gyles Brandreth has written biographies, novels and children’s books. His work include two volumes of diaries: ‘Breaking the Code: Westminster Diaries’, and ‘Something Sensational to Read in the Train: The Diary of a Lifetime’; as well as two royal biographies: ‘Philip & Elizabeth: Portrait of a Marriage’ and ‘Charles & Camilla: Portrait of a Love Affair’. Other works include a series of Victorian murder mysteries featuring Oscar Wilde as an amateur detective, which has been produced both in the UK and in the US. The mystery is based on Wilde’s real-life friendship with Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes. He has also published the New York Times best-seller, ‘The Joy of Lex’.

Our speaker Gyles Brandreth is often an award ceremony host, but he has also won and been nominated for many awards, both as a public speaker, but also as a novelist, children’s writer, broadcaster, journalist, political diarist, theatre producer and lastly as a businessman.

Gyles is married to writer and publisher Michèle Brown, with whom he oversees the exhibition of twentieth century children’s authors at the National Portrait Gallery. They also founded the award-winning Teddy Bear Museum based in Wimbledon at the Polka Theatre. Gyles is the vice-president of the National Playing Fields Association.

Gyles’ ancestors include one of the highest-paid journalists of his day, George R Sims, as well as Jeremiah Brandreth, the last man in England to be beheaded for treason. His great-great-grandfather was the man who promoted ‘Brandreth’s Pills’, a medicine that cured everything.