Just A Minute

Enjoyable Torture

If the point of Just A Minute was to make a 30 minute programme and then
work out at the end which of the four panellists had contributed just a
minute then I might well turn out to be the victor.

Sadly that isn't the point and I might well turn out to be the lowest
scoring contributor ever. It really is devilishly difficult to even get
on the microphone so quick are the others at spotting a repetition. I
spent the whole of the evening pressing my buzzer and discovering that
someone else had managed to press a split second sooner. The live
audience were aware that I was pressing and not getting in on time and
they enjoyed my playful frustration but of course the listening audience
won't be aware of any of that.

It was definitely a jolly evening and I was getting laughs from the
audience for acknowledging my own ineptitude but those are the kind of
laughs that inevitably hit the cutting room floor... quite right too as
they do sort of sit outside the show. Which leaves me concerned about
quite how scant my contribution to the shows will be. Especially the
first of the two.

I was very glad there was a second show because I'd already improved a
little bit and knowing that the audience were onside I felt more able to
be bold about making challenges. I think I managed to talk for a good 45
seconds on one of the subjects before grinding to a halt. Sadly it
wasn't long enough for me to reach Gertrude's whistle and so I didn't
get a point out of it.

The comic challenges people make - usually for deviation, where you know
they will be given the subject back but also that it will raise a
laugh - have to be judged right. I think until the audience trusts you
it can feel as though you're spoiling someone else's flow rather than
adding to the comedy. I think I got those right - and certainly the
audience seemed to go with them - but they also seemed to be dismissed
with speed while others seemed to be dwelt on. But that might just be my
imagination.

All in all it was an enjoyable form of torture and it's interesting to
see how closely my own experience tallies with Michael Palin's from
1975. Of course he only published his diaries recently - which is a very
slow and non interactive form of blogging. Here I have the advantage
because by the time I got home someone from the audience had left a nice
comment on my previous entry. I'm sure Michael Palin would have felt
similarly lifted if someone had scribbled a nice message like that in
his diary at the time. So long as it could have been done without
breaking into his house and finding his diary. Isn't the internet great?

http://gormano. blogspot. com/

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