Gyles Brandreth: Up Memory Lane ★★

Gyles Brandreth is a phenomenon. Not only a best-selling biographer and a former MP turned jumper-wearing TV regular but also, as was proved by his previous Fringe show from three years ago, Can’t Stop Talking, Brandreth is a 5-star raconteur. He knows (or has known) everyone, from the late Queen to theatrical royalty in the shape of Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud, and he’s always ready to drop a famous name with gleeful abandon.

Shortly after that Edinburgh, Brandreth embarked on a hugely successful venture: the excellent Rosebud podcast. In each episode, Gyles interviews the great and the good of British public life (Dame Judi Dench, Sir Geoff Hurst, Richard E. Grant, and the like) about their childhood memories and formative years that shaped the beginnings of their careers. With him as a charming and thoughtful host, the famous guests are frequently candid about their early life, and he gifts listeners an insightful, funny, and often emotional glimpse behind the polished showbiz personas.

With this new show entitled Gyles Brandreth: Up Memory Lane, hopes are high for the tables to be turned on our genial host, with the show promising to unpack his childhood memories and the highs and lows of his eclectic career.

It starts in typical Brandreth style. An irascible rant against ‘See It Say It Sort It’. A bit of self-deprecation. A delicious insulting of the audience: “A few of you won’t make it to the Christmas show,” he jokes with glee. So far so good.

Just as you settle in for a ribald afternoon of fun and mischief, he introduces the Rosebud producer, Harriet Jaine, to the stage. Those expecting this to be a brief diversion will be sorely disappointed. If only someone had a long hook at the Gordon Aikman Theatre.

This is Jaine’s professional stage debut, we are told (repeatedly) – and boy does it show! Dalkeith Country Park will look on with envy at the abundance of wood in her delivery. “What! You didn’t like the way I came on?” she intones with all the spontaneity of a line that’s been rehearsed to within an inch of its life and still doesn’t sound remotely natural.

The trouble is Jaine’s presence is so incredibly stilted, which is made worse with the constant comparison made with the charismatic septuagenarian Brandreth, who is loose as a goose. With a cruel irony, they launch into the old Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Bing Crosby song, You’re Either Got or You Haven’t Got Style. Quite.

For those hoping that they have scratched a musical itch with this, they will be sadly disappointed. When the Rosebud producer, whose singing voice is passable at best, begins a solo rendition of Halfway Down The Stairs, the woman sitting next to this reviewer audibly groaned at the prospect. The Fringe has seen plenty of nepo babies in its time. Even some nepo siblings. But Up Memory Lane offers a Fringe first: a nepo producer.

The pre-publicity suggests that the show will offer a touch of Rosebud. What we get is roughly manhandled by Rosebud. What works so well on the podcast is that the guests have time to tell their story in their own words and there is an intimacy that feels authentic. Here, set upon the stage, stories and anecdotes feel performative. There are strange tonal gear shifts. Were the audience really expecting forays into depression, a mention of child abuse, or references to Rolf Harris or Ann Widdecombe? The podcast thrives because the guests have lived fascinating lives. Here, the fact that Harriet had never had a hot drink until she met Gyles passes for material.

The show encourages members of the audience to leave with recollections of their own. Up Memory Lane evokes the apocryphal story of Morecambe and Wise in their early days playing the Glasgow Empire. Eric came on and was giving the audience his routine, and it was bombing. Then Ernie joined him onstage, to which someone up in the balcony shouted, “Oh Christ, there’s two of them!” Funny that memory should occur…