Continuing Ammanford And District Arts Club’s successful season of events, Ammanford Miners’ Theatre hosts an evening with Michael Portillo, one of politics’ leading lights, April 18.

Michael Portillo has had a long and chequered career in politics, working his way up the Conservative Party’s ranks, achieving a number of high-profiles roles such as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. Michael had his first taste of broadcast journalism after the 1997 election defeat when he undertook a number of assignments for the BBC and Channel 4.

By 2002, this had developed into an active career in the media and saw roles as both a commentator on public affairs, plus as a writer and presenter of TV documentaries on varied subjects, including a programme on Spanish wildlife for Channel 4’s The Natural World, Art That Shook The World: Richard Wagner’s Ring and Elizabeth I from BBC2’s Great Britons series.

He also took part in a tele-visual experiment when he swapped lives with a single mother, taking on her family and benefit-only income and living in Wallasey for a week, which caused quite a stir in the media, as did 2007’s notorious project The Verdict, where he served in the jury of a fictional rape case alongside other well-known figures. He is a regular columnist with The Sunday Times and was The New Statesman’s theatre critic between 2004 and 2006.

At almost 55 years of age, he’s packed quite a lot into his interesting and varied life and there’ll be plenty of fascinating anecdotes in this intimate evening. Book early to avoid disappointment!