I begin by saying what should be obvious – there are several ways you can
count things. It depends on what you are counting. And you are very welcome to
count whatever it is you want to! Really you are!
Also while numbers have the sound of certainty, they often aren’t. An
example. Let’s say you moved into your house four years and 10 months ago, and I
asked you how many years you’ve been in your house. Would you say “four years”
or round it up to “five years”. It’s statistically acceptable to round up, but
it isn’t entirely accurate, is it. And then what if I said to you “how old are
you?” If you were 39 years and 10 months old, would you say 39 – or round up to
40?
I can add quite a few things to Simon’s list of shows to be added, if we
are counting “recordings”.
* I have two recordings from Edinburgh in the early 90s when they played
JAM every day with Tony Slattery and Graham Norton as regulars - it gets a
mention in Nicholas’s book.
* And what about this – a recording of JAM a few years ago at Edinburgh
which featured Nicholas, Paul, Gyles, Jenny and Scott Mills that was never
broadcast on the radio.
* There was at least one Royal Variety show that featured a JAM game with
the old gang of four and Nicholas, and who knows, maybe more.
* What about the recording that featured Paul, Gyles, Sheila, Marcus,
Nicholas and Clive Anderson which they recorded as promos for Radio Four Extra.
There was an audience and am ex-JAM producer John Lloyd was in charge of
it.
* What about the ep of Have I Got News For You which Nicholas guest hosted
where they played JAM for five minues?
* What about the recording of the Linda Smith tribute after she died where
they played JAM for quarter of an hour?
* What about the piece they did on the Indian love of JAM in 2012... that
included several bits of the game being played.
* What about the many I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clues where they’ve played the
game?
* And if we are counting up recordings, why restrict ourselves to the UK?
Ian Messiter ran the game for many years in South Africa. Even used the Just A
Minute name. What about the Swedish version, Pa Minuten
http://en.wikipedia..org/wiki/P%C3%A5_minuten
which has been running almost as long as the UK version? And if we include these
what about One Minute Please, JAM’s forerunner which had the same rules except
that it was played a male v female team game.
* And then what about the time me and some friends played the game and
recorded it. We even rigged up some buzzers!
* And I haven’t yet mentioned that controversial untransmitted show from
1969 when a show was abandoned partway through a recording.
All in all, if we include “every recording”, we have well and truly passed
1000 and are probably getting close to 2000. Or on the other hand, you could get
less than 900 by just counting one recording if they record two shows on one
night.
So – and I say it again – you can get almost any number you like, depending
on what you count. And – again - it really is up to you what you want to
count.
Here’s what I think is worth counting.
One – it makes sense to count apples as apples and pears as pears. I think
the sensible thing is to count JAM radio shows and JAM TV shows and Junior Just
A Minute shows all separately. And within the radio shows, I’d separate out the
highlights shows. If I was the producer of JAM, I think I’d just count the radio
shows if I was wanting to mark a “hundred” anniversary.
Two – I don’t count shows where they played the game for a few minutes as
part of another show. I’m counting shows which stand alone as Just A Minute.
Because the problem is it adds in almost anything. If we count Jim’ll Fix It,
why not The One Show ep of a few years ago when Nicholas, Gyles and Tony Hawks
played it for a few minutes. And if we count that, why not the countless
occasions when Nicholas in particular has been asked to play it in an
interview.
Three – I’m also not counting shows that were not broadcast in their
entirety on either radio or TV. Untransmitted shows don’t count if we are
talking about something where the reason for making it is to be broadcast.
Put JAM aside and consider say Dads Army. I think if you asked someone “how
many episodes of Dads Army were made”, most people would say 80 – the number of
TV shows – rather than automatically add in the 67 radio shows. But even if your
answer would be 147... would you really add in things like Morecambe and Wise or
the Royal Variety Shows where Arthur Lowe and the cast appeared in costume and
in character. Perhaps if you were an obsessed fan – like me – you would be
interested in trying to have a complete list of these, but I think these aren’t
episodes of Dads Army.
But – I do think that it counts for something to add JAM on radio, JAM on
TV and Junior Just A Minute together in the sense of being able to answer
questions like “how many times has Nicholas Parsons appeared on Just A Minute?”
You could separate everything out but it will still be meaningful to say
Nicholas has chaired the broadcast show for the 900th time (when that does
happen!).
So again – count what you like, but I hope I’ve tried to explain what I
would count. And it’s interesting that the BBC came to the same figure.
Sent: Thursday, September 11, 2014 12:28 AM
Subject: Re: [just-a-minute] 900?
As with any long running show, episode numbers always become a bone of
contention.
If we use Dean's episode guide as a reference, then there
have been 837 "episodes" of JAM.
Dean has included the "Silver Minutes"
specials (broadcast over 2 weeks on Radio 4) as 1 episode. When these were
released on cassette, there were actually 4 parts to the show, although the last
2 parts were just clips from previous shows without any introductions or
recollections from Nicholas in between. To reach the total of 900, though, I
presume the BBC have counted the "Silver Minutes" specials as 1
episode.
To this, then, we must add the 28 episodes recorded in 1994 and
1995 for Carlton TV. These were only shown in the London ITV region, late at
night (after the 10pm news), and are the hardest episodes to track down on video
as they have never been repeated. This brings our total up to 865.
Add on
the 20 episodes of the BBC TV series from 1999 (shown in the afternoon, around
12.30pm) and the total rises to 885.
Then there are the 10 episodes
recorded in 2012 and shown on BBC2 in the early evening (6pm) which brings our
total to 895.
Finally, there are the 5 episodes of Junior JAM recorded
for The 4 O'Clock show and broadcast last year on Radio 4 Extra (at around
4.15pm each day). This brings us to the grand total of 900 JAMs (which, not
surprisingly, was used as the opening subject for the 900th JAM).
Of
course, Nicholas has NOT, as is often erroneously printed, "hosted" every
episode. There are 9 episodes where he appears on the panel instead. 3 of these
were hosted by Clement Freud, 3 by Kenneth Williams, 1 by Geraldine Jones, 1 by
Andree Melee and 1 by Ian Messiter. The last episodes not presented by Nicholas
were in 1983 so he has "hosted" every recorded episode since then!
There
are at least 5 other notable recordings of JAM that were made for radio and/or
TV that I'm aware of:
1969 - First BBC TV Pilot (untransmitted) featuring
Kenneth Williams, Sheila Hancock and Clement Freud.
1978 - A short specially
shot sequence for the BBC tv series, "Jim'll Fix It". Jimmy Savile fixes it for
David Whalan to host an episode of "Just A Minute". Features Kenneth Williams,
Peter Jones, Sheila Hancock and Ian Messiter. This is the only time JAM was
recorded and broadcast without Nicholas !!!
1981 - Second BBC TV Pilot
(untransmitted) featuring Kenneth Williams, Clement Freud, Peter Jones and
Patrick Moore.
2011 - Streamed live online on BBCi, with an edited broadcast
the following week on BBC3 TV, this was a special charity edition for Children
In Need. The panel were Lee Mack, Sheila Hancock, David Walliams and Tony
Hawks.
2012 - Gardeners' Question Time meets Just A Minute. Another special
in aid of BBC Children in Need. The panel of gardening experts were Eric Robson,
Chris Beardshaw, Pippa Greenwood and Matthew Wilson.
So, if we count
every known "recording" of JAM on radio and TV, I make it 905. If you split
"Silver Minutes" into 2 parts, as broadcast, then it's 906. If you include the 2
"cassette only" parts (which didn't include any "new" material so they aren't
really what you would call "episodes"), it's 908.
I can also recall
several interviews with Nicholas over the years where he has included a round of
JAM as part of the interview, but you couldn't really refer to those as JAM
recordings.
If Nicholas continues making 27 episodes a year, we should
hit the 1000 mark in 2018.
It's worth noting, though, that Nicholas has
also included JAM as a part of his one-man stage shows over the years (although
it's unlikely any of these were recorded), so he has probably been chairman on
more than 1000 performances of the show already!
Simon