Actor, author and One Show reporter Gyles Brandreth is coming to the Atkinson with his new one-man show Break a Leg!



This show promises to have everyone roaring in the theatre aisles with laughter.

Gyles said, “The new show is a celebration of some of my favourite actors – people I’ve met and admired. The show will include the day I shared a stage with Laurence Olivier and the night I shared a dressing room with the stripper at Bernard Manning’s club in Manchester. ”

When Gyles interviewed his dear friend Joanna Lumley (In a car park adjacent to The Absolutely Fabulous rehearsal room)… this happened as Gyles recalled…

“It is 9.00 am: we are sitting in the sun, by her car (an unspectacular green Nissan), drinking take-away cappuccino from paper cups: Jo does not eat breakfast; she barely eats lunch; in the evening she toys with a lettuce leaf. (She is a committed vegetarian, with a soft spot for cigarettes and fine wine.) I cut to the chase. She is beautiful. She has energy, style, class. For many she is a fantasy woman. What is her fantasy of herself, I asked Joanna…she throws back her head and laughs. ‘It changes all the time. At the moment I’m going through a Doris Day period. I want to wear perky, gingham dresses. Actually, I don’t want to look like Doris Day. I’d like to look more like Brigitte Bardot, with cute little dark glasses. I’d either be cycling with a puppy in the front basket on my bicycle, or I’d be driven in a sports car, or possibly I’d be sitting sideways, without a helmet, on a Lambretta, whipping through Rome.”

Gyles has starred in The West End and on TV for decades, Gyles added, ” As a performer I have appeared in pantomime, Wilde and Shakespeare. I’m privileged to know some wonderful theatre folk, from the effortlessly charming Vincent Price to the endlessly dazzling Maggie Smith. On his ninetieth birthday, we invited the great Sir John Gielgud to join us both for lunch. The actress Glenda Jackson made up the fourth. When Sir John arrived, I told him how honoured we all felt that he should choose to celebrate his ninetieth birthday with us. ‘Oh, my dears,’ he replied in that beautiful fluting voice of his, ‘I’m delighted. You see, all my real friends are dead.”

Gyles is one of the UK’s most recognisable names and is truly amazing live, ‘Break a Leg!‘ promises to be a side splitting evening of amazing comedic stories and one not to be missed!

Break a Leg! starring Gyles Brandreth comes to The Atkinson on
Sat 7 July at 7.30p. To book call Box Office on 01704 53333 or book online at theatkinson.co.uk.

Visit the website theatkinson.co.uk and join our mailing list to keep up to date with the full programme of events coming to the venue soon.