Just A Minute

Radio Times review

If ever a programme needed no introduction it's this venerable panel game, which has been on air for nearly 47 years and here begins a 69th series.

The secret of its success? A deceptively simple concept that requires razor-sharp skill to execute. Debutante Vanessa Feltz does well enough to suggest she'll be back. She's up against Julian Clary. "It is the most difficult game in the world", the stalwart confirms. "To play it makes your brain hurt."

A great time to ride silver wave says Nicholas Parsons

Just a Minute's long-time host explains what keeps him so alert and healthy in his nineties.

Radio 4's Just a Minute spawns a junior version

No hesitation, repetition or deviation. It's a simple formula that has worked for Just a Minute since 1967. But now the Radio 4 show chaired by Nicholas Parsons is asking children to take up the challenge for a special version on The 4 O'Clock Show, a strand on Radio 4 Extra.

The magazine show includes a special week of broadcasts of Junior Just a Minute. Nicholas Parsons is a kindly, paternal host, but please don't expect the same heights of humour as Paul Merton and Graham Norton.

Nicholas Parsons: Irritating man must get a gong

A campaign is afoot to have Nicholas Parsons knighted. Sir Nicholas? Is it really such a ridiculous notion? He's a unique performer - pompous, infuriating, the butt of all jokes. What many people fail to realise, including fellow actors, is that this is a deliberate persona, a comic front.

Knighthood bid for for Nicholas Parsons

There is a growing demand for the Queen to confer a 'K' on gentleman quiz show host Nicholas Parsons, who is now 90.

There's no deviation for JAM's veteran Nicholas Parsons

The 90-year-old actor and presenter of Radio 4's Just a Minute shows no sign of slowing up.

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.