Just A Minute

Just a Minute: why it's never paused

The brilliantly simple format and a host of incredible players are the reasons for its longevity - long may it continue.

Just a Minute, the Methuselah of panel games, has been going since 1967 with plenty of hesitation and repetition, but still no sight of the final whistle. Preserved like an intact fossil in the sedimentary layer of radio history, its formula remains perfect, its host Nicholas Parsons unchanged, despite 60 years on radio, and new talent accretes like barnacles on its venerable frame. The latest guests who are likely to stay the distance are Terry Wogan, who should be fabulous if he can cope with the hesitation rule, and Rick Wakeman, rock star and anarchic thinker who turns out to be an amusing and quick-witted addition to the ranks of Radio 4 comedians.

Terry Wogan to join Just A Minute

Sir Terry Wogan is to become a panellist on long-running BBC Radio 4 gameshow Just A Minute.

Invented by Ian Messiter in 1967, now starting its 57th season, still brilliantly chaired by resourceful Nicholas Parsons (who got the gig when Jimmy Edwards, the original choice for chairman, said he'd rather play polo than turn up on a Sunday to record the pilot episode). Messiter, who also invented Many a Slip and other fondly remembered amusements, used to wear red socks at recordings, for luck. Perhaps "red socks" could be a subject for tonight's panel, Graham Norton, Paul Merton, Gyles Brandreth and Jenny Eclair, as they strive to fill their 60 seconds.

Nicholas Parsons: That's what life's about - having fun

After 43 years at the helm of 'Just a Minute', nothing can keep the all-round entertainer down. Andrew Johnson meets Nicholas Parsons.

Rule change proposed for Radio 4's Just a Minute

For more than 40 years, contestants on Radio 4's Just A Minute have tried to outdo each other by talking for 60 seconds without "without repetition, hesitation or deviation". Now however, the increasingly competitive nature of the show has sparked a fierce debate among listeners about whether the constant stream of interruptions are actually ruining its flow.

If you prefer your comedy straight up this week's Just a Minute sees panellists Tony Hawks, Josie Lawrence, Justin Moorhouse and Dave Gorman at Derby University this week, talking about mature students, Derby, paying off student loans and Zanzibar (which happens to be the name of the student bar in Derby). The players' verbal dexterity is amusing, but it's their petty squabbling and Nicholas Parsons's exasperation that provide the belly laughs. And if this show doesn't snap you out of the January blues, there's probably no helping you until spring arrives.

There were real laughs to be had, and plenty of them, on Just a Minute (Radio 4, Sunday), the last in the current series. The mood was already rather hysterical ("When I look at that beautiful masculine form I can't help but think of King Kong" said Paul Merton of host Nicholas Parsons) when Gyles Brandreth was given the topic of "pretentious vocabulary". Off he went, unstoppably, unleashing a torrent of verbal flourishes. So unstoppable, in fact, that they let him go beyond the full minute. Moments later, Brandreth was emboldened to assert that he has no hair on his body at all. "Show us your chest," suggested Parsons. "Dear Lord," muttered Pauline McLynn. "Off, off, off!" chanted the audience. "What on earth," asked Graham Norton, "has happened to Radio 4?"

Just a Minute: animation

It's Just a Minute, Jim, but not as you know it. The long-running BBC Radio 4 comedy series has been reinvented for the web, and they've only gone and put pictures to it. Not only pictures, but some rather clever animations to go with 60-second discussions of sudoku, CCTV and Monkey's favourite, good old digital audio broadcasting (DAB) radio.