Episodes
Kemi Badenoch is the Leader of the Conservative Party and the current Leader of the Opposition, a job often described as the toughest in British politics. And in this interview with Gyles, Kemi talks about her upbringing and how it gave her the toughness she needs to survive in the ruthless environment of Westminster. Born in a hospital in Wimbledon in 1980, but brought up and educated mainly in Lagos, Nigeria, Kemi's story is one of contrasts: her family were middle class and affluent, but eventually they lost their money and Kemi was sent to the UK at 16. There she got a job in McDonalds ...
It's hard to believe how much Gyles packs into his summer term at Oxford: he's filming with the BBC, he's casting his first Oxford University Dramatic Society production, he's looking for a girlfriend, he's going to numerous balls and parties, he's in the newspapers... so this is a long and action-packed episode of the diaries. Harriet and Gyles discuss some of the changing attitudes of the times. They also talk about phobias, dahlias, stamps, cape-wearing, and read out some brilliant listener emails. If you want to get in touch, email us at hello@rosebudpodcast.com. Enjoy this! Hosted on ...
Rosebud is off to the seaside, to the Sarah Thorne Theatre in Broadstairs in Kent, where we meet the much-loved star of Hi-de-Hi and You Rang, M'Lord, Jeffrey Holland. And we meet some Rosebud listeners! And we sing a song and Harriet dresses up as a yellow coat. Jeffrey tells Gyles about his days working with Croft and Perry, his early life in Walsall, the sadness of losing his father when he was only 14, and how he got into acting. He talks about his love of Superman and Stan Laurel, and his life lesson. We remember Simon Cadell and generally have a marvellous day out. Enjoy this. Hosted...
It's another cracking episode of Gyles's Oxford diaries... Gyles continues his illicit flirtation with his friend's wife, has a sad meeting with Sal, and goes to a party at Robert Maxwell's mansion. He writes a lot of articles, appears in the Sun and on a BBC documentary, and he struggles to find time to do any work. "Busy people are happy people"... but maybe Gyles is trying to squeeze too much into the eight-week terms? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Mel Giedroyc is Gyles's special guest on this episode; and she talks about her amazing family story. Her father and his family were taken from Eastern Poland to Siberia by the Russians in 1939 - Mel's grandfather was shot, but her grandmother, dad and aunts made an extraordinary journey and eventually reached London, where Mel's father settled and met her mother. It's a fascinating, moving and sometimes shocking tale, and a very special edition of Rosebud. Mel also talks about meeting Sue Perkins at Cambridge, about being flashed at in Italy, and about her love of walking holidays. Mel Gied...
It's More Rosebud, and our guest today is a political heavyweight. He was a member of parliament and cabinet minister under Margaret Thatcher and John Major, was the UK's last governor in Hong Kong, and then Chancellor of Oxford University. It's Chris Patten, Lord Patten of Barnes. In this episode, Chris tells Gyles about his childhood, growing up in the west of London in a happy and loving Irish family with a jazz-musician father. He tells Gyles about working for Ted Heath and Margaret Thatcher, about Hong Kong and about his pride at having been involved in the Irish peace process. He talk...
Richard Osman: writer, presenter, producer, creator and podcaster. From Pointless, to House of Games, to Thursday Murder Club and The Rest is Entertainment - the range, volume and success of Osman's work is impressive. So how did this shy boy who liked to stand outside things, observe and who has "weird brain gifts" become such an on and off-screen talent? Richard talks to Gyles about his early years - how his happy childhood spent holidaying with families from the street was disrupted by his father leaving the family when Richard was only nine. He talks about his struggles with his eyesigh...
It's Gyles's first term at New College, Oxford, and in this episode we hear about what happens when the busiest man at Bedales takes on university life. And, needless to say, he hits the ground running. By the end of his first week he's had a few high-level meetings, met some influential and well-connected people, and had a tour of the Oxford Union. As the term progresses, he gives his maiden speech at the Union, writes his first article for the university magazine, and develops a crush on an unavailable fellow student. Plus some of your emails, some chat from Gyles and Harriet and well wis...
One of our most interesting, versatile and talented actors is Gyles's guest today: Sir Gary Oldman. In this very special, intimate and extensive conversation, Gary tells Gyles about his childhood in New Cross Gate in South London, growing up in a council flat with his sisters and his mum - his father left the family home when Gary was seven. He tells Gyles about his happy childhood, dressing up as a homemade batman and playing cricket in the streets with his friends. He tells Gyles about discovering the Greenwich Young People's Theatre and applying for drama school, and about getting his Eq...
It's More Rosebud, and time for another guest with an unusual tale to tell. Julia Baird is the half-sister of John Lennon, and here she tells Gyles about her childhood, their mother (Julia Lennon, née Stanley) and what it was like to grow up alongside a future pop icon. John Lennon and Julia Baird's family was big, and complicated - their mother, Julia, was one of five girls. She met John Lennon's father, Alf Lennon, in the park when she was just 14, and the pair courted, and later married. John was born in 1940, but Alf got a job in the merchant navy and from then on was seldom home. After...
Jeffrey Archer is one of the best-selling writers in the world, and he is our guest today. He talks to Gyles about his childhood in Weston-Super-Mare, his indomitable mother, his wicked granny, and how he was fired from his job at the local cricket ground for his entrepreneurial afternoon tea scheme. He tells Gyles about his university days, about meeting his wife, Mary, and about meeting the Beatles. He talks about his career as an MP, how he almost became bankcrupt and started writing novels. And, of course, he talks about going to prison for perjury and the lessons that experience taught...
A treat for fans of Gyles's diaries, as this week we've got another edition of the gap year diaries... so that's two in a row! In this episode, we start off with a visit from the writer/performer Tama Matheson, who brought Beethoven to life so brilliantly on an episode of More Rosebud a couple of weeks ago. Tama tells Gyles and Harriet about his forthcoming show about Beethoven: 'I Shall Hear in Heaven', on 6 and 8 August, tickets are available from www.operahollandpark.com. Then we get into Gyles's diaries. In this episode, Gyles visits Texas and Louisiana, and is shocked by the racial ine...
This is an exclusive, and more or less uncensored, interview with the journalist and media powerhouse Piers Morgan, who Gyles spoke to live at the Bridlington Business Day this year. Piers talks to Gyles about his childhood, growing up above a country pub in Sussex, about his schooldays being a "buffoon", and about how peach brandy helped to secure him a job editing the News of the World. PIers talks about Meghan Markle, his thoughts on "woke", and his chequered relationship with Donald Trump. He talks, briefly, about phone hacking and the importance of safeguarding free speech. This is a f...
Another bumper episode of Gyles's diaries, featuring lots of chat, more diaries, and a gorgeous listener email and poem from Alex and Isabella Porter. Gyles continues his travels around the USA - he finishes his teaching job in Baltimore, and begins travelling around the US, going to Washington DC, New York City and Canada - where he visits Expo '67. Gyles tells Harriet about his wealthy ancestor, the great Dr. Benjamin Brandreth, inventor of "Brandreth's Pills" and creator of the family fortune. This leads Gyles and Harriet to come up with their own invention... stay tuned to find out what...
The brilliant actress Alison Steadman tells Gyles about her life and career. There are some really enchanting stories in this episode from her childhood in Liverpool - from the romantic way her parents met, to her adventures looking for buried treasure in the local recreation ground and her love for her pet rabbit, Skipper - this is an evocative listen. Alison tells Gyles about her childhood talent for impressions and how this led her to join Liverpool Youth Theatre and eventually go to drama school in Essex. While there, she met Mike Leigh, with whom she created many of her best-known char...
Rose Boyt tells Gyles about her unconventional childhood, and about her experiences of being parented by - and painted by - her father Lucian Freud, the celebrated modern artist. This is an extraordinary story: even Gyles is bowled over by the twists and turns of Rose's childhood. Rose's parents were Lucian Freud and the artist Susie Boyt, with whom Freud had three other children. He also had many other children with other women - 14 children in all - and was never a conventional husband or father to any of them. But he was brilliant - dazzlingly entertaining, talented, intelligent and insp...
JoJo Siwa is Rosebud's youngest ever guest - she's only 22 years old. But she's been famous since she was 9, and a megastar since she was 12, when her first single "Boomerang" went viral. The video for that song was viewed over 1 billion times. Now JoJo is all grown up and, fresh from her appearance in Celebrity Big Brother, she has a new record out: "Bulletproof". Gyles is fascinated by child stars: what drives them, and how do they cope? In this conversation - the only podcast interview JoJo is doing in the UK - JoJo talks about her early years, growing up in Nebraska and competing and wi...
This is a fun episode of diaries, as we hear about the gap year travels not only of Gyles, but also of Harriet too. Because she has finally dug out an old diary, and shares a few entries with Gyles at the beginning of today's show - and they're from her gap year, which was partly spent travelling in India. Then we get stuck into Gyles's travels, which were in the U.S. We hear about his job, teaching in a school in Baltimore, his trip to New York City to stay with some relations, his Aunt Polly's funeral, and his money worries. This episode also features another brief appearance from Joan of...
This week, Gyles is joined by very special guest Sir David Jason, who talks about memories of his career: how he started out in his local theatre group in north London, and progressed through amateur dramatics, to rep, and finally to the West End and television. There are, of course, a few cameos and helping hands along the way: Brian Epstein, Humphrey Barclay, Ronnie Barker and John Sullivan, to name but a few. You'll know Sir David's television work, because it's legendary: Only Fools and Horses, Open All Hours and Touch of Frost are classics which will be watched for many years to come. ...
We've got something quite unique for you this week: an episode of More Rosebud, in which Gyles meets one of the greatest composers who ever lived : Ludwig Van Beethoven. In this fascinating conversation, Gyles will find out about Beethoven's first memory, his challenging childhood in which he was forced to play the piano by his drunken father, and his ascent to genius, both aided and hampered by his encroaching deafness. In this conversation, Beethoven is brought to life by the writer and performer, Tama Matheson. What you are going to hear is a classic Rosebud interview, answered by Tama a...
It's Chelsea Flower Show in London this week, and at Rosebud we're celebrating - with this special episode recorded at one of the most beautiful gardens in the world: Sissinghurst Castle in Kent. At Sissinghurst Gyles meets the writer Adam Nicolson, grandson of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson (who famously conceived and designed the garden there) and his wife Sarah Raven, the plantswoman and entrepreneur, who is one of the most influential people in gardening today. Sarah's garden at Perch Hill in Sussex, and the business she runs from there, have been instrumental in introducing a...
The second half of 1966 - Marlene Dietrich, university interviews, and the final goodbyes.This is a roller-coaster episode of Gyles's diaries, which is full of incident. Encouraged by his mother, Gyles goes on a charitable summer camp to Kent and doesn't enjoy it; there is a scandal at school while he is preparing for his Oxford entrance exam; he and Simon Cadell see Marlene Dietrich live in Golders Green and, in a moving finale, he leaves Bedales for good and gets goodbye letters from some old friends. Plus Gyles and Harriet chat. NB in this episode there is some discussion of some sensiti...
If you love British comedy, you'll know and admire our guest this week: Dame Penelope Keith. The characters she played - Margo Leadbetter and Audrey Fforbes-Hamilton - are two of the best-known and most distinctive characters in sit-com. And this is a rare chance to hear an interview with Dame Penelope. Gyles talks to her about her childhood, growing up without a father, the daughter of a hard-working and talented mother who worked in hotels and took the young Penelope along with her. Penelope talks about her school days - when she was taught by Frence nuns - and how she got into drama scho...
If you're an avid Rosebud listener, you may remember a listener email we read out back in episode 5 of Gyles's diaries, from Harry Scoble. Harry wrote in to say that he'd left a coat in a taxi with Gyles back in 2002 and that he'd wished he had come to collect it from Gyles's house all those years ago, but had never got round to it. Gyles had then told Harriet that he thought he might still have the coat, on a clothes rail in his Jumper Room. In this episode, Harry comes to Gyles's house, and we solve the mystery once and for all. And have tea and an interesting chat in the process. This ep...
The great actor Sir David Suchet is Gyles's guest today: and this conversation gets behind Hercule Poirot - Sir David's most famous role - and delves into David's childhood, his schooldays and his early acting career at the National Youth Theatre and the RSC. Gyles finds out about David's difficult relationship with his father, the great doctor, Jack Suchet. He finds out about his close relationship with his mother and his grandparents, and the influence they had on him. He finds out about David's schooldays, his prowess on the rugby pitch, and how a teacher at school spotted his acting ta...
Gyles's diary, episode 14: the first half of 1966 - A-levels, a trip to Paris, and the end of an era
This edition of Gyles's diary takes us up to the end of Gyles's final year at Bedales in the summer of 1966; so this really is the end of an era. And Gyles finds it very moving to look back at these closing moments of his schooldays. He says farewell to the 101 year-old founder of the school, Mr Badley, and makes plans for his university years and the future with his headmaster, Mr Slack. There is the usual whirlwind of activity - somehow, while revising for his A-levels, Gyles manages to fit in two school plays, some research on the French prison system, and a trip to Paris. Plus Gyles and...
Our guest today is Rachael Stirling: the brilliant theatrical actress and one of the stars of BBC comedy Detectorists, who is currently on stage in London in Giant, about the writer Roald Dahl. Gyles and Rachael begin by talking about a memorable conversation Gyles had with Rachael's mother, the great actress Dame Diana Rigg, when he interviewed her 25 years ago. And this interview with Rachael is no less memorable: it's a fascinating discussion of her childhood, her complex relationship with her mother, and her parents' divorce. It's a frank discussion of her first sexual experiences and h...
Lynda La Plante - the writer, producer and creator of landmark dramas Widows and Prime Suspect - is Gyles's guest today. Lynda is the powerhouse behind some of the UK's most watched television, and she's also the powerhouse behind this episode of Rosebud - which is full of brilliant stories to make you gasp, laugh and cry. From her childhood growing up on the outskirts of Merseyside in a family tainted by tragedy, to her days at Rada and her first career as an actress, to her experiences trying to conceive and finally adopting her son - Gyles hears the full story of Lynda's remarkable life...
It's the week of William Shakespeare's birthday, so Gyles has poetry on his mind... and we thought we'd celebrate with a special conversation recorded with Simon Armitage, who has been Poet Laureate since 2019. Gyles finds out about Simon's childhood and early days, when he played out on the moors with his friends, watched TV and read comics... long before he became turned on to poetry by reading Ted Hughes. Gyles hears about Simon's parents, his love of indy music, and his first career as a probation officer. Gyles and Simon talk about poetry, about Ted Hughes and Seamus Heaney. We hope yo...
We begin this episode of Gyles's diary in Switzerland, where he's spending the summer as an au pair to the family of the Head of the Swiss Army. He beats the President of Switzerland at cards and attends an underwhelming 'son et lumiere'. Back in England, Gyles returns to another busy term at Bedales, in which he carries on his relationship with Sally and tries to reconcile that with his endless school projects: this term he's arranging activities for the children in the younger years, to involve them more in the life of the school. Plus, Gyles's sisters have an argument and we find out mor...