Nicholas Parsons

How Just a Minute turned into 45 years

As the radio quiz celebrates its anniversary, Nicholas Parsons, who has not missed an episode since the launch in 1967, explains its lasting popularity.

The radio show set to be a TV hit: after 45 years later

Gillian Reynolds on long-running radio classic Just A Minute, as it arrives on teatime TV, still fronted by Nicholas Parsons and with a host of big-name stars rising to the challenge.

Nicholas Parsons on the success of Just a Minute

Eddie Mair talks to the panel show host about 45 years of radio success, and the new TV version of the programme.

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.

Nicholas Parsons: joke about my age as much as you like

Old people are the last acceptable butt of jokes because humour based on gender, race or disability is now unacceptable, Nicholas Parsons has said.

Nicholas Parsons is wrong: we rarely joke about the old

Nicholas Parsons is wrong to suggest that the elderly are treated as figures of fun.

Radio 4 Extra - Just a Minute: without hesitation

On a cold winter's evening I made my way to London's BBC Television Centre. Something rather special was taking place. To celebrate 45 years of a classic radio comedy show, those rich cousins in TV were recording a special series of Just a Minute, featuring its ever present chairman, Nicholas Parsons, joined by regular player Paul Merton and a host of favourite all-star panellists.

A special edition of the show as it hits its 45th birthday. "Am I really that old?" asks 88-year-old host Nicholas Parsons, thinking back to when the series started in 1967, and has to answer himself with an honest "Yes".

Well, old it might be but it's lost none of its wit and edge. Ross Noble is particularly hilarious here - although not very good at scoring actual points.

If I may say this without repetition, hesitation or deviation, a radio institution celebrates an anniversary on Monday as the splendid Nicholas Parsons introduces the panel show he has chaired since its inception in just a minute.

Doubtless the shades of such esteemed departed panellists as Clement Freud and Kenneth Williams will be issuing some hollow challenges from the wings as panellists Ross Noble, Jenny Eclair, Gyles Brandreth and Paul Merton are asked to pontificate on subjects given out in the original series back in 1967, from "Why I Wear a Top Hat" to "Knitting a Cablestitch Jumper".