Rosebud with Gyles Brandreth

Gyles speaks to the novelist and writer Sebastian Faulks, who tells him about his childhood growing up in Berkshire and his clear memories of being left at boarding school when he was seven. He talks about his rebellious streak, drawn out by rock and pop music, which manifested itself in periods of instability at school and university. He talks about the close friends he made at Cambridge, and goi...

This week's guest is Charles Spencer: the writer, broadcaster, and heir to the Spencer family title and estate at Althorp, where his sister, Diana, is buried. In this unmissable conversation, Charles talks to Gyles about his childhood, the breakdown of his parents' marriage, and his mother's sudden and shocking departure from the family home. He talks about his three sisters, and his close relatio...

A momentous time for the young GDB in this week's diaries, as he prepares to take his finals and to leave Oxford. The three years have flown by, as they do for all undergraduates - but Gyles has packed more in than most. And, despite the fact he's in the middle of his exams, he continues to do so this term. No sooner has the ink dried on his last history exam paper, he's off up to London to get hi...

Sir David Hare is one of the UK's most prolific and successful playwrights, and in this episode he talks to Gyles first about theatre, about great actors, and about the sensitivity necessary to writing drama; he also talks about his unusual childhood - his father was in the merchant navy and was rarely at home, his mother was resourceful and talented but also fearful and anxious. He talks about th...

In this long-awaited episode, Gyles (and Harriet) talk to the psychotherapist, writer and broadcaster Julia Samuel about bereavement. As regular Rosebud listeners will know, bereavement - whether in childhood or adulthood - is a recurring theme on the podcast, and we have received and shared many heartfelt and deeply moving emails from listeners who lost parents and family members when they were v...

Ben Elton was instrumental in the transformation of British comedy that took place in the 1980s. His scripts for The Young Ones and Blackadder were fresh, anarchic, rude, clever and hilarious. The people that worked alongside Ben - Richard Curtis, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Rik Mayall, Ade Edmondson, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders - to name but a few - are legendary. In this episode of Rosebud, Ben...

We've got a very special guest joining Gyles and Harriet in this episode of the diaries - and this is a really fun edition of the podcast as a result. Stay tuned to find out who it is... Gyles starts his third year at Oxford, and puts on a debate at the Union with Fanny Craddock. Meanwhile, he is stood up by Barry Humphries, gets a new history tutor who is fond of red wine, and tries to help his f...

We're excited to present the multi-million selling author and creator of Jack Reacher, Lee Child, as our guest today. And this is a brilliant episode. Lee is a master storyteller - painting a vivid picture of his childhood in Birmingham, his well-meaning but cold parents, his early forays into relationships with girls, and his days working at Granada Television. He also tells Gyles about his writi...

A moving and important true story is the subject of More Rosebud today, featuring the writer and social justice campaigner Lee Lawrence. Lee's mother, Cherry Groce, was wrongfully shot by a police officer in a dawn raid on their house in Brixton, south London, on the 28 September 1985 - 40 years ago this weekend. Cherry was paralysed in the incident, and spent the rest of her life in a wheelchair,...

Sir John Major, British Prime Minister from 1992 - 1997, is our guest today. In this deeply interesting, personal and touching conversation, Sir John talks to Gyles about his childhood in South London and about his unusual and inspiring family. Sir John's background is unconventional. His father had been a successful music hall artiste, and was a great storyteller, much older than the fathers of J...

Join us for the further adventures of the young Gyles Brandreth, as he continues his impressive career at Oxford - in this episode Gyles finally has the success he's been hoping for in the Union elections - but finds it strangely unsatisfying. He also carries on seeing Michele, despite the fact she has now left university and is starting her first job. Gyles makes his first appearance on Women's H...

We're honoured to have Jung Chang, the celebrated author of the international bestseller Wild Swans, as our Rosebud guest today - and her story will astonish you. In this remarkable episode, Jung tells Gyles the story of her family - and through that, the story of China over the past 100 years. This episode takes us from the tale of her grandmother, who grew up in pre-Communist China and was subje...

Julia Bradbury talks to Gyles about her life, upbringing and her new book "Hack Yourself Healthy". As Gyles finds out in this conversation, from the moment she began working her way up through the TV industry, Julia had led a stressful, action-packed and "high cortisol" life. Was this one of the contributing factors in her breast cancer diagnosis of 2021? Understandably, the discovery of her cance...

You might notice that this episode of Rosebud is slightly longer than usual - and that's because this story is so powerful. This conversation with the stand-up, writer, actor and TV star Alan Davies is virtually unedited - because it's unmissable. In it, Alan tells Gyles about the two most significant, and devastating, events of his childhood: the death of his mother when he was only six years old...

Yes, we know it's secretly your favourite part of Rosebud... it's Gyles's diary! And we know we say this every time, but it's another corker. Gyles does something unspeakable on Edward Heath's shoes. He has to chaperone an out of control drunk Irish poet. He meets Sir Gerald Nabarro, Malcolm Muggeridge and Leonard Woolf. We hear his sister Hester's fascinating account of working as a psychiatric n...

Our guest today is one of the UK's best known and best loved public intellectuals, the classicist and expert on Roman history Professor Dame Mary Beard. Mary tells Gyles about her country childhood in Shropshire, playing on a disused railway track and trying to memorise Jane Eyre by heart. She talks about her interesting parents - a headmistress and a "raffish" historical buildings architect, and...

It's Rosebud's second birthday, and we're celebrating with another conversation with our very first guest: Dame Judi Dench. This time, it's been recorded in front of an audience, at the Concert Artists' Association in Covent Garden, London. Dame Judi treats us to some more stories from her amazing career. She tells Gyles about working with Tommy Steele, Johnny Depp and Clint Eastwood. She tells Gy...

To end our second year of Rosebud, we have one of our most charming, talented and brilliant theatrical dames: Dame Eileen Atkins. Dame Eileen is a uniquely talented writer and actor, both on stage and screen - from Cranford, to the RSC, to The Killing of Sister George on Broadway, to Upstairs, Downstairs and The House of Eliot (which she co-created), to Mrs Dalloway (for which she wrote the screen...

Gyles is back at Oxford after the summer... with a bang, of course. His long-awaited pantomime, Cinderella, opens at the Playhouse, with Sir Michael Redgrave reading the Prologue (and getting stage fright in the wings before the show). Plus Gyles sees James Robertson Justice naked, goes on TV again and forgets his lines for Twelfth Night. Yes, it's another great episode for you, diary fans! Hosted...

We have a broadcasting legend for you today on Rosebud, as Gyles interviews the creator and host of In Our Time and The South Bank Show, Melvyn Bragg, Lord Bragg of Wigton. Melvyn takes Gyles back to his roots in Wigton, a small town in Cumbria, in which his parents ran one of the local pubs, and the young Bragg played all day long in the streets, making bows and arrows from trees overhanging the...

Our guest today is Lord Ivar Mountbatten, a great-great-great grandson of Queen Victoria, cousin of Prince Phillip, descendant of Russian Tsars and of Pushkin, and the second son of David, the late Marquess of Milford Haven, who was Prince Philip's best man at his wedding to Princess Elizabeth in 1947. Lord Ivar tells Gyles about his complex and fascinating lineage, and he also tells him about gro...

The sun is out and our guest this week is a ray of sunshine. It's the unique British comic actress and fashion icon Su Pollard. In this brilliant conversation, Su tells Gyles about her childhood in Nottingham, how she got the bug for performing when she was still in the infants and used to go to school dressed in wild outfits that made her look like a morris dancer. He hears about her parents, Don...

Well, Gyles's diary continues to wow Harriet - and all our lovely listeners - and this week is no exception... Because at the height of the Cold War (it's 1968 and the USSR have just invaded Czechoslovakia), the young Mr Brandreth goes off on a research trip to Moscow. And it is truly fascinating - a snapshot of Soviet life with all its surveillance, austerity and difference. Back in the UK, life...

A best-selling novellist with a life story that reads like a best-selling novel... our guest this week is Anthony Horowitz. In this absorbing and - at times - moving and shocking conversation, Anthony tells Gyles about his young life and upbringing, which is extraordinary. Born to wealthy parents into a very large home of extreme privilege, Horowitz's childhood was cold, lonely and lacking in love...

A special episode of More Rosebud today with a great poet, and filled with great poetry. Roger McGough tells Gyles about his striking first memories, his childhood in Liverpool, and interweaves this with some readings of poems inspired by his life. Roger remembers his hardworking father, the long line of men who came to the house to pay their respects to his father laid out in the coffin after his...