Gyles Brandreth began his career as a children’s TV show host before going on to become a Conservative MP, starring as a fictionalised version of himself in That Mitchell and Webb Look and often appears in Countdown’s Dictionary Corner. He’s also a deft board gamer, having previously held the title of European Monopoly Champion, and established the National Scrabble Championships in 1971. He is a regular on QI, Just a Minute and The One Show and is performing a new Edinburgh show on language, Word Power!
4pm, Pleasance Courtyard (0131 556 6550), to August 30
Pitch your show in 140 characters
It’s called Word Power!: get it, use it, conquer the world. Language is what defines us. As Bertrand Russell said, no matter how eloquently a dog may bark, it cannot tell you that its parents were poor, but honest.
How many Edinburghs have you done?
This is my fifth. The Edinburgh Fringe genuinely changed my life because I was an MP until 1997, and after being kicked out by the electorate in no uncertain terms, I was a bit lost. My wife asked what I most wanted to do, and I thought, I want to put on a musical. A friend of mine told me: “The only place you can get away with that is the Edinburgh Fringe — they’ll forgive anybody up there.” So I put on a show called Zipp! and we did 100 musicals in 100 minutes.
What was the reaction like?
It was a success. But when you’re on stage you can’t see what’s going on because of the lights, and there was a lot of banging at the end of my first show: I thought, oh my god, this is a disaster, the banging is people’s seats going up as they leave — I had just been a Conservative MP, and they don’t know what that is in Scotland! But they were standing up to cheer. You just don’t know what to expect.
What one thing will people learn from this year’s show?
What an amazing thing the English language is — it’s the richest in the world. We have five times the vocabulary of the French, and there’s a reason for that: it’s taken words from all sorts of other languages — French words, Greek words, African words, Indian words — words from all over. It’s a fun show — the upsides, the downsides, the history of it, modern language — everything from acronyms to YOLO.
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What’s your favourite word?
At the moment, it’s yex — a very old word for a hiccup. I just like the sound of it. I love discovering things about words — people think twerk, for example, is a new word, but it’s a 200-year-old portmanteau of twist and jerk. I told this to Miley Cyrus when I met her.
Was she impressed?
She could barely stifle a yawn.
Strangest Edinburgh experience?
During Zipp!, I appeared in various disguises, including as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz, and a member of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and I used to get changed into my stockings and suspenders in my flat before the performances. One day I realised there was somebody in the opposite flat observing me getting changed and I was very embarrassed. I tried to apologise by waving through the window, and he gave me a thumbs up sign!
Have you had any encounters of the scantily clad kind this year?
I’m sharing a dressing room with a burlesque dancer who keeps putting her underwear in the wash basin — that’s a bit trying. Then there’s a guy in the next show who’s a method actor playing Tony Blair. That’s quite exhausting — sharing a dressing room with Tony Blair himself.
Do you ever get into political tête-à-têtes in the dressing room?
No, I pretend it’s the Third Way. He mentions Jeremy Corbyn, I shake my head in sympathy.
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The moment I almost gave up . . .
Was when I first saw the toilets at the Fringe. They are not a thing of beauty. There are 3,000 shows on in 300 venues and all human life is here, from kids doing musicals to a guy doing Hamlet in Spanish in a telephone booth. The challenge is to come to Edinburgh for a month and not go to the toilet once.
You’ve been a politician, a broadcaster, a European Monopoly champion — how does performing at the Fringe compare?
People are very accepting here, and it rejuvenates you — you don’t do it for the money or the quality of the dressing rooms and, unless you’re into German sausages, you don’t do it for the street food. You do it because the audience ranges from children to very old people to overflow Cumberbitches who couldn’t get into Hamlet.
Have you ever encouraged your former Westminster colleagues to perform at the Fringe?
No. I’ve encouraged my family to come and give it a go, but I haven’t encouraged any former colleagues.
Is that because they’re not funny?
I don’t know — maybe I don’t want to cope with the competition. The audiences here would be fascinated by Jeremy Corbyn, and they’d love Ann Widdecombe — she’d be a huge success.