Showing results by author "Gyles Brandreth" in All Categories

Legendary British writer, broadcaster, ex-MP and TV star Gyles Brandreth hosts “Rosebud”, in which he talks to famous and fascinating people about their first memories and first experiences. Expect laughter, nostalgia, memorable stories, revelations and, of course, the odd name-drop from Gyles. We want to hear about your first memories - email us at hello@rosebudpodcast.com And you can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @therosebudpod Artwork: Freya Betts. Music: Phil Lepherd. Producer: Harriet Jaine. Rosebud is a 'Plain Jaine Media' production. Creator: Gyles Brandreth/Plain Jaine...

"I see murder in this unhappy hand...." When Mrs. Robinson, palmist to the Prince of Wales, reads Oscar Wilde's hand she cannot know what she has predicted. Nor can Oscar know what he has set in motion when, that same evening, he proposes a game of "Murder" in which each of his Sunday Supper Club guests must write down those whom they would like to kill. For the fourteen "victims" begin to die mysteriously, one by one, and in the order in which their names were drawn from the bag....

Brought to you by Penguin. Dancing by the Light of the Moon, a collection of poetry to last you a lifetime - poems that will bring you joy, solace, celebration and love for every occasion Includes an updated chapter of poems to bring you hope and happiness this year A POEM CAN . . . Comfort ·...

This is a story of the most well documented, most commented on love affair of our times. Yet the personalities behind the facade remain elusive and the nature of their relationship is an enigma. This is the first major biography of Charles and Camilla, two people who have battled against the curious lot that fate has thrown their way. Gyles Brandreth returns to the same ground as his last book, the bestselling "Philip and Elizabeth"; "Portrait of a Marriage".

There are few people Gyles Brandreth doesn't know or hasn't met. Now a grandparent, he traces his steps back to being a three-year-old tearing around 1950s London on his tricycle, to boarding school where he had an appendix removed simply to get out of football, to Bedales, where he met Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, to balancing his growing love of theatre with his love for educating, the 'woolly jumper years', the stint as an MP, the years of close friendship with the queen, to becoming a septuagenarian Twitter star and stalwart fixture in British entertainment.

Philip—elusive, complex, controversial, challenging, often humorous, sometimes irascible—is the man Elizabeth II once described as her 'constant strength and guide.' Who was he? What was he really like? What is the truth about those 'gaffes' and the rumors of affairs? This is the final portrait of an unexpected and often much-misunderstood figure. It is also the portrait of a remarkable marriage that endured for more than seventy years.

Elizabeth, their marriage and their dynasty. This is the story of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh - the longest-serving consort to the longest-reigning sovereign in British history. It is an extraordinary story, told with unique insight and authority by an author who knew the prince for more...

London, 1889. Oscar Wilde, celebrated poet, wit, playwright, and raconteur is the literary sensation of his age. All Europe lies at his feet. Yet when he chances across the naked corpse of sixteen-year-old Billy Wood, posed by candlelight in a dark stifling attic room, he cannot ignore the brutal murder. With the help of fellow author Arthur Conan Doyle he sets out to solve the crime - but it is Wilde's unparalleled access to all degrees of late Victorian life, from society drawing rooms to the underclass, that will prove the decisive factor in their investigation....

This intimate, personal biography of Queen Elizabeth II tells the story of her remarkable life, reign and times, from a perspective unlike any other. Gyles Brandreth writes the Queen's tale candidly with grace and sensitivity from the view of someone who met her, talked with her and kept a record of those conversations. Brandreth knew the Queen's husband well and knows the new King and Queen Consort.

For the 100th anniversary of the publication of "Winnie-the-Pooh," Gyles Brandreth chronicles the writing of this beloved classic and the life of its creator, A. A. Milne. This program is read by the author. Somewhere, a Boy and a Bear tells the remarkable story of A A Milne, a playwright, a...

Oscar Wilde, aged 27, has come to the city of decadence to discover its charms, to rekindle his friendship with the divine Sarah Bernhardt, and to collaborate with France’s most celebrated actor-manager, Edmond La Grange. Oscar discovers dark secrets lying at the heart of the La Grange company, and is confronted by murders both foul and bizarre. To solve the crimes, to unravel the mystery, Oscar risks his life - and his reputation - embarking on a dangerous adventure that takes him from bohemian night clubs to an asylum for the insane.

In this wildly entertaining A to Z of verbal acrobatics, Gyles takes you on a whirlwind tour of our mother tongue – from the origins of words and correct grammar and punctuation, to similes, euphemisms and record breaking tongue twisters (try getting your mouth around floccinaucinihilipification!). An idiosyncratic blend of history, word play, anecdote, and hyperbole, all in 60-second instalments, this is Gyles Brandreth at his word-perfect, Just-a-Minute best. You’ll never mix your metaphors again...

The aim of this audiobook is entertainment - and surprise - but there will be a fair bit of erudition and incidental education along the way. We discover the oldest words, the newest, the longest, the shortest, the most frequently used, the costliest (yes, words can come with prices attached), the funniest, the most fatal, the most unusual...From the words Shakespeare gave us to the latest in sexting, the best and the worst, the most amusing and amazing words are here.

For anyone who wants to make fewer (not less) grammar mistakes, this “passionate, enlightening, and easily navigable manual is certainly the right book at the right time” (Publishers Weekly)—reminiscent of the New York Times bestseller Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Our language is changing...

Welcome to The Personality Test, the panel show in which a brand new host takes the chair for every episode to present a quiz entirely themed around themselves. Each gets to run the show by their own rules, devising topics and queries based on their life, whims, fancies and past glories. Among the showbiz celebrities in the hot seat are Gyles Brandreth, Jennie Bond, Antony Worrall Thompson, Esther Rantzen, Janet Street-Porter and Edwina Currie, while the rounds include Love It Or Hate It, True or False, That Special Day and Life's a Pitch.

Gyles Brandreth presents the quiz show with scandal on its mind Hosted by the least discreet man in Britain, broadcaster and national treasure Gyles Brandreth, Whispers is the panel game that celebrates all things scurrilous and salacious. Running the gauntlet of gossip are two teams of two...

On 18th February 1895, the Marquess of Queensberry left a visiting card at the Albemarle Club on which he had written: "To Oscar Wilde posing as a sodomite." The accusation led to a series of three trials and the imprisonment of Wilde. This compelling dramatic recreation has been carefully compiled from the original trial transcripts.

Nick Reynolds is a lefty alternative comedian-turned-holistic therapist. Living on the floor below him is Gyles Brandon, an ex-Tory MP turned media darling. Poles apart, they’d never choose each other as friends, but when Nick accidentally floods Gyles’ apartment, they become reluctant flat-sharers. Joined by Gyles’ goddaughter Sophie Okuyu, the spoilt daughter of a corrupt African politician, the housemates get into various scrapes....

Pantomime Stories – "Babes in the Wood"; "Cinderella"; "Dick Whittington"; "Jack and the Beanstalk"; "Puss in Boots"; "The Sleeping Beauty". Brothers Griimm Fairy Tales – "Rapunzel"; "Rumplestiltskin"; "The Frog Prince"; "The Three Musicians". Hans Andersen Fairy Tales – "The Nightingale"; "The Emperor's New Clothes"; "The Little Match Girl"; "The Tinder Box"; "The Ugly Duckling"; "Thumbelina".

This selection of essays by Oscar Wilde (1854-1900) demonstrate the varied power of his genius. Compiled from his lecture tours, newspaper articles, essays and epigrams, these writings show that beneath his trademark wit and love of paradox, Oscar Wilde was an original and remarkably modern writer.