> --- In just-a-minute@..., Dean Bedford <dbedford@...> wrote:
> >
> > You mention for example Kenneth saying "we shouldn't have women on the
> > show". Where's the woman who is well-known for the phrase "we shouldn't
> > have men on the show" or something similar?
As a fan of the show, Dean, I'm sure you will be the first to admit that
Kenneth used that phrase humourously. He was not seriously asking for women
to be banned from the show!
Though billed as a panel game, 'Just A Minute' is really an improvisational
comedy, in much the same genre as 'Whose Line Is It Anyway?' Just like Paul
Merton and the stand-ups do today, Kenneth's role in the show (when he was
added to the panel in series 2) was to provide comedy, in the form of
spontaneous wit.
The other panellists quickly adopted the same approach; and those who
couldn't cut the mustard, so far as humour was concerned, fell by the
wayside. Clement Freud turned out to have a devastatingly filthy line in
humour; Peter Jones had a slightly subversive and actor-ish humour; and
Derek, like Kenneth and Peter, had also cut his teeth as a comedy actor.
These people didn't choose to become the regulars - they simply became
regulars by default, because they were the best players. The format was thus
self-selecting. The show rapidly became the survival of the fittest: and the
name of the game was wit.
Wilma Ewart and Beryl Reid were not suited to surviving in this type of
show, and rapidly disappeared. Likewise Geraldine James. You say that Aimi
was the butt of the jokes, but she lasted more than ten years on the show.
And, really, she was no worse at the game than Peter Jones.
But the men were more successful in their use of humour. They were simply
funnier than the women. And in my opinion some of the women were only there
on sufferance. You obviously felt that Aimi was one of those: I'm not sure I
agree, although she obviously used different tactics from the regular
foursome.
However, the show was *never* about the sort of laddish culture which you
see on "Never Mind the Buzzcocks". Although Clement employed somewhat risque
material at times, the show never approximated the approach of someone like
Phill Jupitus.
Under Kenneth and Derek, in particular, the show had an intellectual content
that's completely absent from all other comparable shows - well, those that
didn't have Frank Muir in! It also had, as I say, wit. Sadly, a lot of the
female *and* male guests who filled the fourth chair couldn't contribute in
either of those ways.
It is simply a hard game to play well. It's definitely a game that anyone
can play, but not everyone who tries plays it well. Most of the guests in
the fourth chair spent 60 seconds boring the pants off the audience (at
least until they had played a dozen or more shows). Wendy, bless her, was
never able to play it at the level that Kenneth or Peter or Derek achieved.
Viewed simply as an improvisational comedy, it has to be admitted that no
woman ever played the game to the same standard as Kenneth Williams; so the
question "where is the woman who said: we shouldn't have men on the show"
becomes a purely rhetorical one.
But I see nothing sexist in the show whatever: the cream simply floated to
the top, and the cream was Kenneth, Clement, Derek and Peter. Lots of women
and lots of men were tried out, and didn't do as well. That's life!