Gyles Brandreth

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Every day, in a stairwell at Broadcasting House, I pass by a photograph of Nicholas Parsons. If you haven't seen that photo, you've seen one like it. Down the years, Nicholas must have been photographed thousands of times with timepieces of all descriptions. He is invariably pointing at them, and beaming as if the clock in question is the most wonderful object ever conceived.

And well he might. Since the earliest days of Radio 4 in 1967, Nicholas has presided over Just a Minute with the same glee exhibited in every publicity shot. His cry of "Welcome to Just a Minute!" at the start of each programme is as enthusiastic a greeting as you'll hear on the radio... an enthusiasm that the passing decades have not dimmed.

His cheery and wily chairmanship are the backbone of it all, with the game's players giving the show new form every week. For a programme obsessed with the passing seconds, time has robbed it of some of its most accomplished participants. Paul Merton is now the mainstay, though he's not here for this first edition of a new series: here it's Gyles Brandreth who picks up and runs with his topics, full of clever word play, boisterous energy and mischief.

As always, anarchy is never far away. In round one, panellist Patrick Kielty accuses Parsons of behaving like a contestant and awards him a point. Never a wasted minute.

Bursting with joy

Former MP, author and comedy performer Gyles Brandreth is on the hunt for perfect happiness.

Up-and-coming TV presenter Michael Grade explains the evolution of a peculiar British cultural institution, in a lightly festive hour that begins with our host in full make-up, wig and tent-like dress. We learn how 18th-century impresario John Rich discovered harlequin shows were ten times more lucrative than Shakespeare; then how the specifics of a man delivering double entendres as a deliberately unconvincing woman gradually fell into place.

Grade chats with Gyles Brandreth, Richard Briers and Matthew Kelly about the demands of damehood. But the star of the show is Berwick Kaler, writer, director and dame of York's famous panto. The future of the art form looks safe with him.

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.