The Slow Death of a Good Radio Show

Since 1975 or 76 I have listened regularly to 'Just a Minute,' the wonderful radio panel show hosted by Nicholas Parsons. In fact Parsons has hosted every show since the first one way back in 1967.  The basic rules are simple.  Four panel members are given a subject, often obscure, and they must chat about this for one minute without hesitation, repetition or deviation.  This is of course much harder than it seems and at times has produced an excellent half hours worth of laughter.    
Throughout the show wit, repartee and a quick response has been the regular order with occasional bits of smut thrown in, usually by Clement Freud or Kenneth Williams.  Now however this programme has become a sad shadow of itself.  Wit is replaced by constant smut and the old fashioned seaside postcard 'dropped drawers' humour abounds.  Julian Clary and his one joke alongside Gyles Brandreth and his gay obsession reduces the programme to a low level, Brandreth being the worst offender.  He does indeed possess talent and ability to speak well but insists on jokes 12 year old's would not find funny yet appears with monotonous regularity on the show these days.  When the attempt to televise the show was attempted yet again recently it appeared more like 'Just a Gay' rather than 'Just a Minute,' the BBC liberal agenda being more important than the programme or the viewer.  That flopped as such programmes do on TV but the present show is a poor reflection of what was once humour at its finest. Wit, banter and laughs, sadly usually missing today.  Maybe this reflects society, maybe it reflects the small group from whom all panelists are chosen.  I myself have lost interest and Radio comedy is a lot less funny than it has been in the past.  Very sad that.   

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Just a Minute

'Just a Minute' is my favourite Radio 4 programme.  Hosted by the ageless (well almost 90 actually) Nicholas Parsons the simple format requires each of the four panelists to speak for one minute on a given subject without hesitation, repetition or deviation.  Simple yet very difficult when put to it.  At any infringement of the rules others will jump in and collect a point, if correct, and often huge hilarity does come about.  

Today however saw yet another attempt to transfer this long running show to television.  During the forty five years since it first began, in 1967 before I was born you understand, there have been occasional short lived TV adaptations, none of which have worked.  It took just a minute to realise that once more it will fail!  The whole power of the game lies in the spoken word, and television looks for image, not words.  The gimmick on this occasion, to enliven the programme for stupid people, was to keep the camera constantly moving slowly as the panelist spoke.  Worse still was that other needlessly annoying habit of closing slowly into the speakers face until we are right up their nose!   Not something we do in the normal conversations we have I believe.  

I couldn't look!  Instead I played a solitaire game, not easy on this laptop, there again nothing is easy on this brute, and listened while they made their hesitant way to completion of the programme.  Indeed there were good moments, although heightening the laughter needlessly as TV does was not one of them, but this is a standard for radio programmes, and will not succeed on TV until TV people consider the viewer rather than their trendy ideas.  The image, and the trendy fashion of the day, concerns TV people far too much.  The last thing they care about is the viewer.  Return the programme to the radio please, and another blessing is we don't have to look at Sue Perkins either!

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