Just A Minute

 
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28th December 2007: Article by Suzy Parsons (Nicholas' daughter) about JAM

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twistedcontrolOct 19, 2009
 

 
JUST A MINUTE, THEY SAID-- DAD MADE IT LAST 40 YEARS; SUZY PARSONS
28 December 2007
Daily Mail

OF ALL the programmes, quiz shows, one-man shows and plays my father has done, Just A Minute is my favourite. Not least because, like him, it seems to be have been around for ever. In fact, on New Year's Eve it clocks up 40 years.

The show was devised by a friend of my father's, Ian Messiter, who lived near us in Hampstead, North London.

It was 1967. Daddy was riding high because he had just won Radio Personality of the Year for a show called Listen To This Space. The BBC's Head of Light Entertainment asked him if he could come up with an idea for a panel show. He went to Ian, who reworked a show he had written called One Minute Please and suddenly Just A Minute was born.
The rules were that you were given a subject on which to talk for one minute, unrehearsed, without deviation, hesitation or repetition -- but the other panellists could interrupt to challenge on those!

In those early days, the panelists were a gathering of friends.

Clement Freud knew my father through my mother, the actress Denise Bryer, who had met Clement's wife, Jill, at drama school. And my father knew Derek Nimmo and Beryl Reid.

Though the BBC didn't like the pilot, the producer David Hatch persuaded them to stick with it. Just as well since it is still playing to packed audiences 40 years on.

I remember Daddy telling me he used to earn £25 1s for each show, which quadrupled if it was broadcast on the World Service or repeated. The panellists used to tease him because he earned £1 more than them.

When we were young, my brother Justin and I were more interested in our mother's voice than our father's. Mummy was the voice of Noddy and Little Weed in Bill And Ben. These were far more interesting to us; so Listen With Mother was more our kind of radio programme than Just A Minute.

Mummy was also known as 'The Voice' and was the Playtex, Cross Your Heart Bra girl. She was more famous than my father then, but she would often go and watch live recordings of Just A Minute in London.
The programme was broadcast on a Sunday -- Daddy's gardening day. My father would be in his scruffy clothes with the radio in the garden, with me and my brother pottering around beside him, or dashing into the house on the dot of 12.30, making muddy footprints on the carpet, gathering us all around the radio in the kitchen while Mummy was cooking lunch. Even now, Justin says listening to Just A Minute reminds him of the smell of Sunday roast.

My mother is a great cook and I do remember dinner parties at our family home around that time. My earliest memories are of sitting on the stairs peering through the banisters at the guests.

There was always an eclectic mix of people, from Monty Python's John Cleese to Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe. My father is a lifelong Liberal. There were actors, comedians, producers, directors and, of course, panelists from Just A Minute.

Jill and Clement Freud were regulars around our dinner table -- our house had a big dining room and a small family kitchen. Mother was always nervous cooking for Clement because he was such a food expert and had written cookery books.

The first time he came she burnt the main course. Determined to make up for this, she invited them again, but rang Clement to ask for instructions on how to cook suckling pig. He told her to do nothing and he would be right round to do it himself. I thought it was a good way for mother to avoid having to cook!

Kenneth Williams, one of the show's most intelligent panelists, was a little scary and not particularly at ease with children (though he did remark to my father how very good looking my brother was).

He was also a mercurial character, sometimes speaking in his Carry On voice, nostrils flaring, then suddenly going into his Olivier voice.
Initially, Kenneth was a wild card on the show and struggled slightly in the first programme. However, he received lots of laughs and by the third show had found his niche.

The programme proved to be a fantastic showcase for him and he appeared on every show until his death in 1988.

Derek Nimmo and his wife Pat were also family friends. They were lovely people and Derek's death in 1999 was a terrible shock that upset us all greatly. Derek starred in the TV comedy series All Gas And Gaiters, Oh Brother! and Oh Father!

He was such a valued panelist that the producers moved the recording time of one series of Just A Minute half an hour earlier, so Derek could be at the Shaftesbury Theatre by 7pm, where he was performing in Charlie Girl.

He was a lovely man and used to come to stay with me and my family in Guernsey, where I lived for a few years.

My two children adored him. 'Mr Nimmo is coming to stay!' they would exclaim excitedly -- which I hope was nothing to do with the £5 note he'd invariably press into their hands when he was saying goodbye. I am still in touch with Pat, his widow. And just to show how intertwined our lives can still be, my son, Tom, was at school with Derek and Clement's grandsons!

By the second series, Peter Jones, a skilled comedy actor, had joined as the fourth regular panelist.

His gentle delivery belied his razor-sharp wit. Peter was an old friend of my father's; they had appeared in a number of plays together in the Fifties.

Just A Minute is very like my father. In the 40 years it has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4, it has retained its sparkle, seamlessly moved through the decades without ageing, constantly evolved by appearing current and fresh, but most of all held on to its integrity.

It is broadcast all over the world. It's strange yet nice being able to hear my father's voice wherever I go.

Even in a tiny cafe on the most deserted beach in Greece when there was no one around, the show's theme tune of Chopin's Minute Waltz crackled over the airwaves, followed by my father's inimitable words: 'Welcome to Just A Minute.'

When I am in my car going on a long journey, it is curiously comforting to hear his voice, probably because he always sounds so cheerful, setting himself up as the straight man for everyone else's jokes.

Of course my father was the straightman for Arthur Haines and Benny Hill, so he is well-prepared for the job.

A few years ago, when the BBC building was being refurbished, the show was recorded at the Drill Hall in London's Tottenham Court Road. It was a sweltering summer evening and there was no air conditioning.
I was in the audience with my children, Annabel and Tom. Daddy was complaining on air about the heat and how thirsty he was and Paul Merton was teasing him.

Then suddenly Tom, who was only 12 years old, left his seat and silently walked on to the stage, handed his grandfather a bottle of water and walked back to his seat. His timing was immaculate, his face deadpan and he did not say a word.

MERTON was silenced for a moment. The audience roared with laughter and Daddy obviously had to explain to the listeners what had happened.

It is no surprise to me that Tom wants to follow his grandfather into entertainment.

I still go and watch recordings, as well as listen to the show on the radio. But to see the show 'live' is even funnier.

The equipment has not changed over the years, giving the show a feeling of being rooted in an era long gone.

There is no sophisticated staging, just two sets of chairs and tables and lots of bottles of water.

Yet people queue out of the door for tickets. It does amaze me in a world of high-tech special effects that shows such as Just A Minute -- where there are no gimmicks, no Autocues, and no glitz -- survive.
The show's mainstay of Chopin's Minute Waltz, witty repartee and my father are the central ingredients that have not changed in 40 years.
Even though I have had to share my father with millions of listeners and fans all over the world, I really cannot imagine anyone else's voice declaring over the airwaves: 'Welcome to Just A Minute...'

 
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