Interview
Interview
Gyles Brandreth once spent a whole summer dressed as Snoopy
Talking dog suits, Micheal Jackson, Sooty, chocolate Hobnobs, and the history of British theatre with the world's best conversationalist
Gyles Brandreth is trying really hard not to eat his croissant. “I’ve just got into the car from This Morning, and sometimes it overruns, but I shall endeavour to avoid eating my breakfast, even though it’s sitting in front of me as we speak.” Go ahead, we tell him, nobody minds. “No, no. There’s nothing more annoying than people eating on the telephone.”
As immaculately well-mannered, verbose and genial as you’d expect, Brandreth is a national treasure: writer, broadcaster, comedian, one-time politician and life-long raconteur. Leaving his croissant politely uneaten, Brandreth starts instead on his upcoming tour – an eight-stop UK tour that will fill his Sunday afternoons from April to June.
“I’ve been doing this off and on, alarmingly, for about 50 years, and rather like the great Ken Dodd, one of my heroes, I want to play in every theatre in the country,” he says. “I love the history of theatre in this country, so when I’m choosing where I go, I take a real interest in the buildings and stages I’m going to be appearing on. I started this tour in Bristol, at the Bristol Old Vic…”. Cue a long anecdote about Simon Cadell, Tim Pigott-Smith and the original wooden ‘Thunder Run’ prop that’s still in operation backstage.
“The show is called ‘Gyles Brandreth Can’t Stop Talking’ for a reason,” he laughs. “It’s actually a problem with me. I can’t stop talking. It’s been a problem since I was a little boy. I know this to be true because about five years ago, during lockdown, I wrote an autobiography. I was digging around in family papers, things that my parents had kept, old school reports, that sort of thing, and I came across a letter that my older sister had written in the 1950s. It was a letter to my parents, and it said, ‘Dear mother and father, if we pool our pocket money and return it to you, would you be able to afford to send Gyles to boarding school? He won’t stop talking. We can’t stand it’. On the bottom of this letter, in my father’s very recognisable handwriting, I saw the word ‘agreed’, with a tick.”
Still holding the world record for the longest after dinner speech, given for charity in 1982 (“I stood up at 9pm and sat down at 9.30am. I started as they were clearing away dinner and finished as they were clearing away breakfast.”), Brandreth’s inability to stop talking is a much a blessing as a curse. And thankfully for anyone hoping to see him on tour soon, all the theatres involved have imposed a strict curfew.
“They won’t let you go on for longer and, indeed, my wife stands in the wings with a big sign that reads ‘Gyles, you think you’re the thinking man’s Ken Dodd but you’re not – get off’.”
Even more impressive is the fact that Brandreth has no idea what he’s actually going to be talking about each night. On stage with a giant wheel to help randomly pick topics, and asking the audience to feed ideas, his one-man show is an improvised combination of QI, Just A Minute and of every other panel show he’s ever become a mainstay.
“Essentially, we’ve created a kind of menu – like a Brandreth bistro – where the audience can choose three courses: starter, main course and pudding. So, some nights they would choose, perhaps, my most embarrassing moment. Some nights they’ll have theatre stories, political stories, royal stories, a whole range of things. And for pudding, they can have a lucky dip where they can ask me about anything they like.”
And by “anything”, he means anything.
“I forget where I was where somebody asked me to talk about ‘rough sex’. That took me a moment, but by the time I finished we had 1000 people demanding rough sex. I don’t think that’ll be happening on this tour though. I’m sure they don’t do rough sex in Swindon…”
Before that one went any further, we changed the subject. Who better to be stuck in a lift with?
Who would you most like to be stuck in a lift with?
Well, I’ve been stuck in a lift with famous people twice. I was stuck in a lift with Michael Jackson. It was at a party hosted by Yuri Geller, the spoon bender, and I was going up in the service lift at the back of the building with Michael Jackson, who was also a guest, and his minders. Because it was a service lift, it was going very, very slowly, and at one point it seemed to get stuck. I was keeping the conversation going, chatting away brightly, with no response of any kind from Michael Jackson. This was 25 years ago. He was wearing a face mask, ahead of the game on Covid, but he didn’t say a word to me. I actually attempted my moon dance for him. I told him how much I loved Elizabeth Taylor, I spoke about monkeys, I mean, I did everything. No reaction of any kind. So when he got out of the lift, I said to the one of the minders, ‘that was very disappointing, I just gave my all in there’. And he said, ‘of course, he didn’t speak to you, it’s a Monday. Mr. Jackson never speaks on a Monday’. Extraordinary. My wife later told me I should try that.
When was the second time you were stuck in a lift?
That was with Miley Cyrus. That went almost as badly because I decided to show her my twerking.
Who would you least like to be stuck in a lift with?
Nobody, because I find people totally fascinating. I’ve been in lifts with lots of very interesting people. I was once in a lift with Harry Corbett and Sooty, and I kept saying things to Sooty, and he then repeated them into Harry Corbett’s ear.
What’s the weirdest interaction you’ve ever had with a famous person?
I feel like you’ve already answered this one a few times over…
Well, I once interviewed Archbishop Tutu of South Africa, and that was a very interesting experience. I spent the day with him, and we sat down at the kitchen table in the morning and he grabbed my hand and said a prayer. He said, ‘I’m being interviewed by Gyles, my new friend, and I think this is going to be the sweetest interview. It’s going to be sweet. We are going to say good things to each other’. And at the end of the day, he took me out to look out at Table Mountain, and he said, ‘this has been a good day. I prayed that it would be, and it has been. I hope you now believe’. That rather charmed me.
What was the last gig or show that you went to?
This might be out of date by the time your readers see this, since you’re talking to me at the end of the year, but the last show I saw was the pantomime at The Palladium, because they had me make a guest appearance. I love pantomime, and I met my wife at an audition for Cinderella. I was putting on Cinderella as a student production, and she came to the auditions, and I cast her as my wife. Poor girl.
But I went to see Robin Hood at The Palladium, which I loved because they’d invited me to come on as King Richard II, to be insulted by Julian Clary, who I do know from doing Just A Minute.
What’s on your rider?
A cup of tea.
Just a cup of tea?
A cup of tea and a glass of water. Yes, that’s it. Maybe a chocolate Hobnob. When you’re on tour you end up turning into a sandwich, so I’m very un-fussy in dressing rooms. It always amuses me that dressing rooms are always very modest – almost the more elaborate and beautiful the theatre you can always guarantee the smaller the dressing room.
What did the 12-year-old you imagine you’d be doing now?
Exactly what I am doing. My wife says there’s been no development in my life. It’s tragic. When I was a little boy, I was in the school plays, I was writing the school magazine, and I was doing exactly the same thing.
We used to go on holiday to Broadstairs, in Kent. There was a theatre on the beach called The Pavilion On The Sands, and I performed there when I was seven, eight or nine years old, in talent competitions. There was a bandleader there called Cecil Barker, who was in charge. Many years later, I met his son, who became the Chief Constable of Kent, and he gave me one of his father’s conductor batons. So I was performing even as a little boy, and I began writing my first book when I was 10. It was a biography of Shakespeare. I haven’t finished it yet…
What’s the worst advice you’ve ever been given?
“Grow up”. Because I found it very difficult.
I think the best advice I’ve been given was when I was about 12, at a school in Kent. The headmaster said, “Brandreth, remember, busy people are happy people”. I’ve followed that advice all my life. That’s probably why I’m doing this tour. We’re doing Sunday matinees, because I love a matinee. I never know when to eat at an evening show. Do you eat before the show, which is a bit early, or do it after the show, which is a bit late? So all the shows I’m doing start at 3pm on a Sunday, so I can get to the theatre in good time, have my chocolate Hobnob and my cup of tea, do the show, and then be out in the evening to have supper and talk about it.
Which film have you rewatched the most times?
The Court Jester, with Danny Kaye. I saw that when I was a little boy and Danny Kaye is a genius. If people remember this film at all, there’s a sequence about a goblet that has some poison in it. The verse begins, “The pellet with the poison’s in the vessel with the pestle. The chalice from the palace has the brew that is true, the flagon with the dragon…” and so on. It’s a funny tongue twister type song, and that was always my favourite film, until Paddington 2 came along. In my view, that’s the best film ever made.
What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?
I was an entertainer at Butlin’s in Minehead. This is a long time ago, more than 50 years ago, and I had to dress up as a dog. Snoopy the dog, to be specific. The children were all vicious and vile, pulling my tail, and I could see these ghastly children through a gauze netting in the neck. I was somewhat protected by this huge costume – it was a sort of seven-foot-tall dog, with a giant head above mine – but that was exhausting. My summer as Snoopy the dog was not a good summer.
What’s the skill that no one else knows that you’re great at?
I play the triangle. I’m also a former European Monopoly champion. I founded the national Scrabble championships and I’ve broken several world records. The one that’s least known is that once upon a time I tossed the world’s tiniest pancake.
How tiny is tiny?
It was one centimetre across, but it was a proper pancake. I did it on the on the radio.
Do you have any superstitions?
I’m quite interested in theatre superstitions, but I’m not a superstitious person, funnily enough. I don’t whistle. Partly because I can’t. I call it “The Scottish Play”, instead of saying Macbeth. I do touch wood…
I ought to believe in superstitions, because I’ve been so lucky so far. I was once in the theatre in which Eric Morecambe died [the Roses Theatre in Tewkesbury], and there was a giant hole in the middle of the stage, like a pit. They’d put a white line around the edge of the hole, but I had to spend the whole performance avoiding it. I’ve so far not fallen off a stage, nor have I ever fallen down the middle of it. So touch wood…
But then somebody in the audience, I’m afraid, did once die during one of my shows. This was years ago, when I was on tour with the comedian Cyril Fletcher. He came up to me afterwards and said “oh this is marvellous! We can put on your billing ‘with Brandreth, you’ll die laughing!’”. I didn’t think that was a very good joke. Cyril Fletcher then also told me that somebody had been born during a pantomime once, when he was playing Mother Goose. Somebody actually gave birth in the gallery, and they named the child after him. I don’t know that one would want to be called Cyril, particularly if you’re a girl…
Gyles Brandreth Can’t Stop Talking begins its UK run in April. Find tickets here
