After Dinner Speakers: Christine Hamilton, Dennis Taylor, Ricky Martin

Most people had no idea who Christine Hamilton was until the 1997 General Election. Then she became an instant overnight celebrity for the forceful support she gave to her embattled husband and then MP Neil in the face of allegations of 'sleaze'. Five years on her husband is largely out of the news, but Christine Hamilton still endures, partly perhaps because of the fact that she's the sort of person you either admire or despise. To some she's admired as the fiercely loyal wife, always sticking up for her embattled husband, while to others she's a Tory battleaxe, the wife from Hell who refuses to leave the public eye. She regularly appears on TV and radio, in everything from Holiday to Have I Got News For You to I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here. And she and her husband are never far away from controversy either. Inspired, no doubt, by her formidable image, she followed up on her early celebrity and verbal battering of Martyn Bell - the man who unseated Neil Hamilton in Tatton constituency - by writing a book - 'Christine Hamilton's Bumper Book of British Battleaxes'. This weighty tome pays a lighthearted tribute to 33 similarly notorious women, from Queen Boudicca to Margaret Thatcher. Then there was THAT Louis Theroux programme... And now she's coming to Shrewsbury Music Hall as part of a national speaking tour. Here she'll be in conversation with political commentator Iain Dale, co-presenter of BBC Radio Five Live's Sunday Service, and the owner of Westminster publishing house Politico's. Mrs Hamilton promises to lift the lid on 'the discreet but not so discreet world of Westminster' in her show at Shrewsbury Music Hall on Thursday 19th September.