Say what you like about Gyles Brandreth, or, to put it another way, say what you don’t like about Gyles Brandreth, there’s no doubt he is adept at putting himself about.

To use the Marmite analogy, one either likes Brandreth for his verbal dexterity, erudition and general polymathism or dislikes him for his over-the-top campery and cloying ubiquity.

I declare an interest in falling into the former category: I have been interviewed by the man for one of his One Show films for the BBC and worked with him early last year on a booklet about a famous literary dinner party held at London’s Langham Hotel at which Conan Doyle and Wilde were guests. But either way, you can make your own minds up when you go to Brandreth’s one-man show at the Playhouse on Saturday evening.

When I spoke to him, he was being driven to a gig, and before I’d switched on the recorder was making suggestions about how the interview might be conducted: I could pretend to be a News of the World journalist listening in to him just talking, or failing that, intersperse his answers with interruptions from his satnav for comic effect.

I ploughed on: Why’s he calling the show the One to One Show? “First it’s a nod to the One Show, but more: it’s about people I’ve had the privilege, pleasure and sometimes horror of encountering one to one; it’s a mixture of stories about theatre and politics, and name-dropping — from the Queen to Michael Jackson, the cast is extensive!”

And Gyles then starts dropping names: “I begin with Donald Wolfit, whom I first saw on stage at Oxford’s New Theatre in the ’50s, and go on to Michael Redgrave, whom I first encountered in 1968 at the Playhouse and John Gielgud also at the Playhouse in, I think, 1972”.

He’s met the Queen and Prince Philip on many occasions (he’s written a book about them), and every Prime Minister since Harold Macmillan; he was also a Tory MP from 1992-7, becoming a junior whip. But he emphatically denies being a member of the establishment: “No, I’m an outsider who’s been lucky enough to get on the inside track now and again. For example, I’d never claim to be a friend of the Duke: James Callaghan told me ‘Royalty: they offer friendliness, never friendship’”.

On his time in the Commons, he is withering: “It’s like making jokes about the Titanic to talk about John Major’s time, but with the benefit of hindsight, it was a fascinating era: so much went wrong. Margaret Thatcher had a sense of humour, which I always feel must have made bringing up Mark a challenge for her!” Unsurprisingly, Brandreth has no plans to return to politics and thus promises to spill many beans in his show.

Recently, as well as his TV and radio appearances (he’s a regular on Just A Minute), he broadened his repertoire writing a well-received series of thrillers using Oscar Wilde as his detective. Slightly defensively, he emphasised his professional modus operandi.

“When I join a club, I pay the dues. I’ve done a lot, but when I do something, I try to do it properly. When I was a TV AM presenter in the ’80s, I put on my sunny jumper and smile and went to work; but I took off my jumper when I left.

“When I was an MP, I wore the regulation grey suit, took it seriously. I’m trying to do these Wilde stories properly, within the rules of the genre”.

“Listen to the people: they don’t want you, Gyles,” his wife said to him after his defeat in 1997. An awful lot seem to now, though.

  • The One to One Show is at the Oxford Playhouse on Saturday, at 7.30pm. Box office: 01865 305305.