Gyles Brandreth talks about being part of a pornography commission
Gyles Brandreth has talked about the time he and Cliff Richard were asked to be part of a commission looking into pornography.
Speaking on the White Wine Question Time podcast hosted by Kate Thornton, he explained: "Lord Longford set up a pornography commission and much mocked, he was called Lord Porn. He set up this commission and one day and I received a telephone call. The voice said, 'This is Frank Longford (...) I'm setting up this commission to investigate the scourge of pornography in our society and I've already got a bishop and an Archbishop, a Rabbi, and I'm looking for some younger people. Cliff Richard has said yes, would you say yes as well?'
"So, Cliff Richard and I, the Bishop, the Archbishop, and the Rabbi all gathered at a room at London University. Lord Longford welcomed us, and then he distributed filthy magazines and we sat there, the Bishop, the Archbishop, the Rabbi, me, Cliff Richard in a circle with Lord Longford, flicking through these disgusting magazines going, 'Oh, no, oh' no!' (...) anyway, God, this went on for several months."
When asked by Thornton whether they discussed the contents, Brandreth replied: "We extended beyond that; we had to go into the streets, and we went to see lewd films. I remember going with a student nurse to see a film in a sleazy place in Piccadilly Circus. It was called Beat Me Twice or something, it was a dreadful title and I sat there desperately embarrassed with the student nurse.
"The dreadful thing about going to a pornographic film I discovered, is that in cinemas you normally don't sit too close to the screen. If it's a porn film, they're all in the front row, so you can't get into the front row at all. They're all there, eagerly right at the front of the cinema and we were sitting at the back, the nurse and I. Of course, being a nurse, she'd seen it all before, but some of it was a bit of a revelation to me."
Gyles - who is set to tour his live show titled Can't Stop Talking!!! from September - also talked about he went to Copenhagen to watch a live intercourse show. "We got to the other end and there was the British Ambassador to greet us all. I think he gave us all a fiver or maybe even ten pounds in Danish krone, which he said would be more than enough to see what we'd come to see, which was the live intercourse. He said for a tenner you can certainly get the live intercourse.
"What is interesting is that the press at the time was sending the whole thing up, and now with the distance of 50 years, we would take a totally different view."
Thornton's guest also told an amusing story about a potential rift between Cliff Richard and Dame Judi Dench. "I saw Cliff the other day, what a lovely man he is. I was doing a show last year with Dame Judi Dench at the Gielgud Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue and outside the theatre queuing to get a ticket was Cliff Richard. (...) So, we sent a message out saying, Cliff, please come round afterwards and say hello and he was slightly embarrassed.
"He said, 'Oh, I don't think Judi Dench would want to meet me'. So, I met him in the corridor afterwards and I said, Judi Dench is looking forward to meeting you. I said, as you go in, feel free to sing Congratulations, but as he went in, guess what he did sing? Devil Woman."
White Wine Question Time is available to listen to on all podcast platforms. iTunes