just a minute

Twelve years ago I mentioned my interest in Just a Minute and um I also mentioned my interest in it a few months ago too, it's one of those very addictive slightly guilty-pleasure shows that not only runs and runs on a very simple premise / set of ideas, it has also developed its own internal ambience which probably makes it a little hard to get into (I'm not sure) if you haven't been listening to it for close to fifty years on and off like I have. 

After Nicholas Parsons died, which was always going to happen, they rotated hosts for a little while from the regular panelists, now it would seem they have settled on Sue Perkins as host. She was an excellent panelist so it's kind of sad to lose her in that capacity. She's very sharp of course and does a great job as host except in the way she consistently demonises Gyles Brandreth when he's on. 

Brandreth is a very, very funny man. He has created a wonderful persona for this program (or maybe it's him - I don't know, I've barely ever encountered him in any other forum). It's a kind of pompous showman with a grab-bag of old tropes that belie his apparently horrible politics. What gets up my nose is Perkins' decision to make Brandreth a scapegoat as though he was some sort of old perv at worst or at best someone who always needs taking down a peg or two. I don't really understand why; she may not like his politics, which is fine neither do I, but he is a brilliant personality for a show like this and he adds a huge amount. More to the point, with JAM's rather sour history of tolerating (but no-one knew - did they?) an actual sexual predator as a beloved member of the core cast for decades, I'm talking of course about Clement Freud, it seems a bit rich to be berating Gyles Brandreth in ways that, if you didn't stop to think about it, you'd think he was actually in some way toxic or handsy. I'm sure he isn't, because it wouldn't be tolerated for a second. 

I'm still sad about Clement Freud! I thought he was magnificent and I loved the Grimble books too. 

Incidentally I found a copy of The Kenneth Williams Letters somewhere (I can't remember where) and am dipping into it. It's interesting and absolutely not funny. Like a lot of people in his profession Williams is not only a miserable person, he sees the world very much in black and white. Of course he was intensely inhibited as well. Complete fucking genius though when he was doing what he did best. He was superb on Just a Minute indeed that might have been where he did his best work - ? 

Seems silly to be writing about JAM and to not mention the completely excellent Paul Merton. The glue that holds the thing together - even when he's not on it, in some weird way. Merton is also the link between the old and the new JAM, having essentially replaced Williams and so worked with the other three original panelists of Peter Jones, Derek Nimmo and Freud. But I should also say that paradoxically the show really improved at the turn of the century, in my unscientific estimation (i.e. I have no proof of this, just my memory thinking back) before Parsons started to seem not entirely sure where he was, and from when Jones, Nimmo and Freud were still around, joined by Merton, and then transitioned into a much larger pool of guests including a lot more women. I mean the show in the 70s and 80s was a lot of fun for the time but looking back it could have been a lot more than a show of five white men talking amongst themselves, for crying out loud! But I'm going from unscientific to ahistorical, aren't I. Apologies. It's still a great show but maybe it's a bit uncertain, well I suppose a lot of 55 year old people are uncertain so imagine being a 55 year old radio show. 

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Word is I should treat this illness as though I needed more rest than I feel like I do, which is hard. This morning I felt dreadful on waking but now aside from a mild headache I feel completely fine. So figure that out. Yesterday I watched a lot of Homicides. Saw some interesting people. I'm not even going to ask you to guess these two because the two people I showed them to who were very au fait with their body of work a few decades later, were unable to place them at all. OK, one little clue (aside from the one dropped in the previous post) just in case you want to play: They were famous together. Bizarrely, they were in consecutive eps of Homicide. 

'Ray Fox' in the episode 'Wasp Nest'

'Alice Baker' in the episode 'Let's Get Together' 

OK it's Ian Smith and Anne Charleston. Well I was excited. 

I wonder if they regret making that record. I would. 

Someone I am really loving in these Homicides Gerard Kennedy. He's fabulous. He had bit roles in Homicide four times in 1966. Here he is as the jive talking boxer Eddie Stevens in 'Knife and Beads'.

And here he is as 'Peter O'Brien', the deluded escapee who shoots Bronson in Elsternwick. He's 90 years old this year, fabulous actor. 

One more thing in 'Knife and Beads' is this funny little moment when the three detectives get out of the car with their guns ready for a shoot out in a suburban house and this little kid waddles down the street. I wonder if they even noticed she was there (I mean, the camera crew). That kid is my age lol. 

Along with my comfort watching of old Homicides I am indulging in comfort listening to the new series of Just a Minute on the BBC app. I'm conflicted, because although (or because?) it's well-stocked with all the favourites from the last decade plus, and while the last few years of Nicholas Parsons was a little awkward as there were clearly moments when he didn't know what was happening and the others indulged him, now without him they do seem to be floundering a little. What's odd is that Paul Merton, who was definitely in cahoots with Parsons as the kind of second-in-command, and would in other circumstances make the move up to being the new host, clearly doesn't want to because he can't then do what he does best - be funny as a contestant - and so others like Sue Perkins (who's always good) and Jenny Eclair (ditto) and Gyles Brandreth (who despite myself I find hilarious) are doing it. I actually think that NP's great value was that, while he could be funny himself, he really just took a schoolteacher role, trying to reign in the mayhem, and being strict with the rules. I think there is a slight air of desperation here with JAM at the moment, and this series certainly sees a lot more interruptions that NP wouldn't have tolerated - of the 'What's your challenge?' 'I just wanted him to stop' kind of variety. 

The show still has not secret weapons exactly, but definitely weapons. I love Sheila Hancock, and I certainly hope I'm half as switched on as she is when I'm 89 (I'm not even sure I am now). I actually really enjoy almost everyone on the program. But I suppose I would have to say that it's not as good as it was with NP, and it won't have a chance of getting there again until they instal a new chair who is either slightly less funny and slightly more clueless than the rest of them - or can fake being so.