Graham Norton

This is the third attempt to put JAM on the box, the BBC having done it previously in 1994 and 1999. Parsons and Merton appear in each episode, with guests appearing being Sue Perkins, Gyles Brandreth, Stephen Fry, Liza Tarbuck, Graham Norton, Josie Lawrence and Julian Clary. There are also a fair number of new contestants: Jason Manford, Miles Jupp, Ruth Jones, Phill Jupitus, John Sergeant and Russell Tovey.

The format is the same, but there are some obvious changes; for a start, there's no scorer sitting next to Parsons. Instead he just has the scores on a screen, and the clock is started by a large button next to him. There's also a little bell rang to indicate they are moving into the final round.

Some things do remain the same, though. The studio is designed to look like the art deco BBC Radio Theatre, where the radio series is normally recorded. For some reason, however, the studio lights change from blue to purple when the subjects start. Why they need to do this I have no idea. I find the camerawork even more irritating. There's no need to cut from here to there every three seconds.

However, there's still much to enjoy from this show. I for one enjoy the little amusing asides that go through out each episodes. My personal favourite was in the fourth episode when the panel kept making jokes about Miles Jupp being the supposed love child of Gyles Brandreth. The jokes just kept snowballing throughout.

With regards to the TV adaptation, I know that there will always be people who will insist that it's not as good as the one on radio, but there are always people who complain about TV adaptations of radio shows. If we rejected every TV adaptation of a radio adaptation out of hand we wouldn't have had the TV successes of shows like Whose Line is it Anyway? or Little Britain.

I'd love to see more episodes of the TV version of Just a Minute; but I doubt they'll produce them. Unless they want to celebrate the show's 50th anniversary, that is, and given that Parsons is 88 years old that might be a bit dangerous.

To celebrate its 45th anniversary, the Radio 4panel show returns to TV for the first time since the 1990s. The hiatus is not surprising: the format of four competitors getting 60 seconds to speak on a subject "without repetition, hesitation or deviation" is hardly visual. Or so you might imagine. The first episode, which finds host Nicholas Parsons overseeing Paul Merton, Sue Perkins, Graham Norton and Phill Jupitus, reveals much about the panellists you might otherwise miss, notably Jupitus's genuine frustration at his own inability to avoid repetition.

It's been a Radio 4 article of faith for 45 years. So the Beeb is celebrating the birthday of Just A Minute by sticking it on TV. Call it a midlife crisis if you like, because it's hard to see the point. The strengths and weaknesses of the radio version remain. Nicholas Parsons - who looks surprisingly nervous for such a trouper - still warms the main chair. Paul Merton, Sue Perkins, Phill Jupitus and Graham Norton make up a textbook panel. And everything's exactly the same. So why not just stick to the special anniversary versions of the radio show? Could it be that Just A Minute is really easy to transfer, has a guaranteed audience and can be passed off as 'new comedy'? We hope not. Still, on the plus side, you could ignore the pictures and still listen to it while doing the ironing.

The 45th anniversary of the quaint Radio 4 panel show, in which contestants must talk for 60 seconds on any given subject "without repetition, hesitation or deviation", sees it honoured with a first television outing for 13 years. The opener of 10 nightly episodes calls upon TV quiz staples Paul Merton and Phill Jupitus to provide the deadpan humour, alongside Sue Perkins and Graham Norton, while long-standing host Nicholas Parsons marshalls proceedings with a boyish grin that belies his 88 years.

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Well, The Sarah Millican Television Programme made me laugh. Her delivery is a bit tele-prompter stiff for the straight-to-camera sections and the format is a bit woolly (bit of Harry Hill telly commentary, bit of Graham Norton tease-the-guest), but she's funny. "A four-foot child can fit in the mouth of a hippopotamus," she said, apropos of nothing. "I'm guessing that whoever found that out isn't allowed to baby-sit anymore."

Titillating talk-show host and Telegraph columnist Graham Norton has an all-male line-up tonight. He's joined by British actor Damian Lewis, who's currently garnering rave reviews for his role in Channel 4's US spy drama Homeland. Lewis's fellow Etonian Dominic West - who starred in the searing US crime saga The Wire - drops by to talk about his latest film John Carter, about an American Civil War veteran mysteriously transported to Mars. Also among the guests are French actor Gérard Depardieu and singer Olly Murs, who performs his new single Oh My Goodness.

Titillating talk-show host and Telegraph columnist Graham Norton is graced with a Hollywood great tonight. He's joined by Oscar-winner and professional ditz Goldie Hawn. Actor John Cusack also drops by to talk about his latest film The Raven, a fictionalised account of the last days of macabre mystery-writer Edgar Allan Poe, while music comes from rockers Kasabian, performing their latest single Goodbye Kiss.

He may be ubiquitous these days but Graham Norton's spiciness and sass, backed with smart ad-libbing skills, still make him a talk-show treat. Tonight the Telegraph columnist chats to actor Mark Wahlberg, in town with new action thriller Contraband, along with singer and actress Minnie Driver and comedian Jo Brand.