Gyles Brandreth from the One Show comes to the Alban Arena (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

Gyles Brandreth from the One Show comes to the Alban Arena

5:22pm Monday 31st January 2011 in Interviews

During a very full and rich life, Gyles Brandreth has done many absorbing, diverse things. In the course of his fascinating and hugely varied career, he has been an MP, government whip and minister, journalist, author, broadcaster, theatre producer, publisher, actor and businessman. But never before has he been a touring stand-up comedian. Until now.

Gyles, a charismatic man whose marvellous wit makes him a natural comedian, took his debut stand-up show to the Edinburgh Festival this summer – and completely stormed it. In his act, entitled “The One to One Show”, Gyles ranges from politics to showbiz, from Countdown to the Duke of Edinburgh. He performs without hesitation or repetition (and just a little deviation) as he delivers sixty scintillating minutes of gags and gossip about some of the major stars he has met over the last forty years – one to one.

The show sold out in a flash at the Edinburgh Festival, and at the end of each performance audiences were cheering for more. The critics were equally enthusiastic about a performer who can be summed up by all those words which begin with E: engaging, effervescent, energetic, effortless.

The Daily Mirror raved that Gyles was, “Brilliant. A serious talent for making people laugh,” while The Daily Mail called him, “Incredibly funny, wildly indiscreet. Britain’s best raconteur” and The Daily Telegraph described him as, “A dead-pan comic to rival Jack Dee.” The Scotsman, meanwhile, went for a short but sweet précis of “The One to One Show”: “Deep, deep joy.”

The excellent news is that now you can see what all the fuss was about, as Gyles is embarking on a massive, nationwide tour of “The One to One Show.” He is bringing his unique brand of wit, wordplay and hilarious name-dropping to a theatre near you very soon. And, he solemnly promises, there will not be a woolly jumper in sight! The tickets are already flying out of the door like so many over-heated cakes. So I’d advise you, as they say in the trade, to book early to avoid disappointment. Gyles, who is currently writing the fourth in his best-selling series of Victorian murder mysteries featuring Oscar Wilde as a detective, says that he is really excited about the tour, even though it became so enormous only by accident. “I said to the producers, ‘I’ll do 4 to 5 dates,’ and they thought I’d said 45 dates’, so that’s what I’ve ended up doing!’ It was a bit of a surprise, but now I’m really looking forward to it!”

The performer, who is also a reporter on BBC1’s The One Show, explains what drove him to take up live comedy at the age of 62. “I’ve always liked doing new things. I went to Edinburgh ten years ago and did a musical. Then five years ago, I did a Shakespeare play. This time, I thought, ‘Edinburgh is all about stand-up, and I’ve never done that before, so let’s go for it!’”

The results were spectacular. “It was an amazing experience,” beams Gyles, who is a regular panellist on R4’s Just A Minute, BBC1’s QI and Have I Got News For You. “Having been a politician, I’m used to hostile audiences. I’m used to people who get up and either walk out or walk towards me, which can be a bit frightening! But the Edinburgh audiences got up and cheered. It was very strange!”

There is no doubt that Gyles is a wonderfully gifted stand-up. Hugely in-demand as an after-dinner speaker and awards show host, he says he thrives on the buzz that live performance generates.

“I’ve done a lot of TV, and there is something contrived about it,” muses the comic, who is happily married to the writer and publisher Michele Brown. “But when you’re performing stand-up, it’s just you, one human being, surrounded by a thousand other human beings, and it’s a very real experience. You’re right there, in the moment. That makes it quite special.

“It’s lovely to be doing something completely new, although it is also terrifying. You’re out there completely alone with no safety-net, no script and no one sitting in prompt corner. Obviously, I have a Latvian girlfriend sitting there, but she doesn’t speak English!”

Gyles, who has written acclaimed diaries and a best-selling biography of The Queen, continues that, “Of course, I’m doing this tour for the money. I’ve discovered that money is the one thing keeping me in touch with my children! But also, performing gives you this terrific adrenalin rush. There is nothing more satisfying than hearing an audience laughing. When we get up in the morning, we can do without a tragic awareness of life. What we all need is humour. Lose that, and the whole show’s over.”

He carries on that another advantage of stand-up is that, “You can also go further when you’re doing live comedy. There is no bad language in my show – that makes me very different from other stand-ups! – but you can dare to be yourself more live.” He adds with a laugh that, “You can see your audience, too, and some of them may well be the sort of people who put pets in wheelie bins!”

Gyles, who was Lord Commissioner of the Treasury in John Major’s Government, goes on to explain what you might expect from “The One to One Show.” “The title is a nod in the direction of The One Show, which I work on. But it’s actually about the great and the good I’ve met one to one. It takes in everyone from Michael Jackson to the Queen. I drop every name from Winston Churchill to David Cameron – and everyone in between! The show is supposed to be funny, but also true. Every story has a basis in truth. It’s about laughs and revelations.”

“The One to One Show”, which showcases Gyles’ wondrous verbal dexterity, is also a paean of praise to language. “Theatre first gave me a love of language, and this show is a celebration of the English language,” says Gyles, whose Oscar Wilde novels are published in 21 countries and are being developed for TV by Sprout TV and BBC Worldwide. “We’re very lucky that our parent tongue is English, the richest language in the world.

“Shakespeare had a vocabulary of 30,000 words. Some American teenagers now only use 500, and the majority of those are grunts! We’re not seizing the opportunity. Language is power. No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, it cannot tell its parents are poor but honest. Encouraging people to use language well is a good thing. The show is fun – you can leave your mind with your hat in the cloakroom. I’m not trying to be didactic, but the show is a celebration of words.”

Gyles, whose Edinburgh debut nine years in Zipp!, a show featuring 100 musicals in 90 minutes, won universal five-star reviews and the Audience Award for “Most Popular Show on the Fringe”, continues that, “Language has been important over the years to many fine comedians. Look at Kenneth Williams, Les Dawson, Ronnie Barker – they had such fun with the English language.”

Never more than a minute away from the next anecdote, Gyles adds: “That reminds me. Ronnie Corbett came to see my show in Edinburgh. He loved it and led the standing ovation. The problem was, no one noticed he was standing!”

Gyles, who founded the award-winning Teddy Bear Museum, now based at the Polka Theatre in Wimbledon, reveals that he did in fact have one previous experience of appearing at a comedy club – but he’d prefer to forget it! “It was forty years ago. I was fresh out of university and had just got an agent. He booked me to support Bernard Manning at the Pied Piper Club in Manchester.

“I thought the audience was listening to my act very respectfully, until I realised that Bernard had positioned a couple of go-go dancers right behind me. The audience were transfixed not by me, but by these topless women gyrating in time to my routine. I guarantee that there will be no topless go-go dancers on ’The One to One Show’. I know that may disappoint some people!”

All that is behind him now. Gyles is currently going from strength to strength. He has just been asked to take “The One to One Show” to the US and Australia. But for the time being, he is relishing the prospect of touring the UK.

“I’m going the length and breadth of this country, and I can’t wait,” he enthuses. “I love all those sad dressing-rooms in municipal theatres with a single light-bulb, a cracked basin and a plate of tired-looking sandwiches left by the Krankies the night before.”

A comedian to the last, Gyles concludes: “Some people say I’m a sophisticated version of The Krankies. I take that as a great compliment!”

Alban Arena on February 10