Just A Minute

 

 

If you were to read his autobiography "The Straight Man" 1994 you would find he started in the Theater and then found his nic in comedy including the Famous Windmill Theater in London as their resident comediean

-- also you can find this at his official website

"His first professional engagement, whilst still an engineering apprentice, was as a Carroll Levis discovery on his radio shows, doing impersonations.

He served his acting apprenticeship in Repertory at Bromley in Kent. After two years playing a different part in a different play each week, he proved that comedy and character roles were his particular strength. Failing to obtain work in the West End, he moved to the legendary London cabaret circuit in the 1950s. He starred at Quaglino's, The Allegro, The Colony, the famous Cafe de Paris and many other venues.

In 1952 he became resident comedian at the famous Windmill Theatre for six months, which was followed by a lot of radio variety. Even now, he is still doing a lot of solo work, after dinners, one man shows, and more recently his show at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe - solos comedy and guests - now in its eighth year."

http://www.nicholas parsons.co. uk/earlyyears/
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you buy a used copy of his bood at amazon.com for under $5
( I got mine in the uk)

http://www.amazon. com/Straight- Man-My-Life- Comedy/dp/ 1857978757/ ref=sr_1_ 5?ie=UTF8& s=books&qid= 1268600151& sr=1-5

--- In just-a-minute@ yahoogroups. com, "Bobby" <bobbyshaddoe3004@ ...> wrote:

>
> I know people

have seen my rants, some rather incoherent and ungrammatical assaults on Nicholas over the years. But I think I'm going to attempt to counter balance the negative with the positive in this particular post. As I say, I'm going to make an attempt to do so.

>
> When I first listened to Just a Minute, I

found all of the elements rather intriguing, from the various panelists, to Nicholas himself. In fact, when I started listening more regularly, I originally was more on Nicholas' side than anything else, and thought the attacks and insults made against him were unjustified. As I said, that's how I originally felt.

>
> Having listened to the episodes where Nicholas was a

panelist and someone else sat in the chairman position, those were exceptional in that it did lead to some chaos, and Nicholas certainly does seem well educated on certain things and is able to go for a hefty amount of time before being challenged. I will also say that he is certainly adept at picking up on the transgressions of others (sometimes moreso as a panelist than as chairman).

>
> As much as I've railed against Nicholas in the past for might

be perceived as overall incompetence and ineptitude, I will say that Nicholas certainly does try his best given the circumstances.

>
> To say

that Nicholas had a career in show business is something of a misnomer, only because aside from his early work with Arthur Haynes (which I don't know that much about), and the occasional mention of a film he did here and there like 'Brothers-in- Law' or 'The Long Arm of the Law' (films which I've never seen), I can't really think of anything significant he's done before 'Just a Minute'.

>
> I know that he was also the host of the gameshow

'Sale of the Century', which ultimately turned Nicholas into a national joke (something which is often brought up now and again during 'Just a Minute').

>
> I can say that the only thing that he was actually any good at

was playing a Vicar in that one Doctor Who story 'Curse of the Fenric', which surprised the hell out of me, I don't mind telling you.

>
> In

thinking rather long and hard about what it takes to be a chairman of a panel game, especially a game like 'Just a Minute', I agree there is a delicate balance that has to be maintained. Obviously you can't be too strict with the rules, but can't be too lax with them either. since the show isn't a real game show, per se, and more entertainment value is generated by the panelists themselves, in how they interact with each other, as well as what they are able to say on any given subject, I can definitely see how hard it would be to truly remain fair to the panelists that are participating.

>
> The fact

that Nicholas does still turn up, even when he has a cold (as can be heard many times when he's lost his voice or whenever he is coughing inbetween rounds to clear his throat) certainly says a lot about the loyalty and committment that Nicholas has to the program.

>
> Something else that I used to find

rather amusing during the early days of the program, tended to involve Nicholas' behavior towards the women on the show, or rather one woman in particular: Aimi MacDonald. Nicholas' implied flirtations with Aimi and the way he would cater to her on occasion, as though being overly nice and generous to her will somehow be rewarded with a night of passion with Aimi, it really tickled my fancy I must say.

>
> However, I don't find it as amusing now that Nicholas has

reached the age that when a girl says 'no', he should be profoundly grateful. I've tended to notice over the more recent years, his flirtations with woman that are young enough to be his own daughter, like Maria McErlane or Shappi Khorsandi, to be utterly disgraceful and disgusting. And its not just the women that he calls 'darling' every five seconds. Some of the younger men that appear on the program like Paul Sinha or Justin Moorehouse, he has a propensity of calling them 'my darling boy'.

>
> Speaking of Maria McErlane, I

do rather enjoy the banter that emerges between Nicholas and Maria. Largely because Maria sets up a great flirtation with Nicholas whenever she is speaking on a subject, she gets interrupted, he leaves the subject with Maria because he wants to hear more, but she then comes back at Nicholas with an incredibly well timed insult and put down that crushes Nicholas' ego to no end.

>
> I also find that there are a great many words and phrases that Nicholas

uses that are so overused, that he should be forbidden from using them forever. He has a propensity for saying phrases like 'There we are' almost every five seconds, sometimes he'll say it almost back to back in a single sentence. He also has a tendencity of saying the word 'right' after every sentence or whenever he can't complete a thought or sentence it always 'umm, uhhh, oh uh uh, right!' He also uses the words 'I'm afraid' an awful lot, he also has a tendency to say 'I'm sorry' a lot when its quite clear he isn't. His attempts at being kind to a panelist, especially if they are new, only make him come off as overly patronizing. And then his denials of patronizing someone just make him seem even more patronizing.

>
> I make it no secret that I do not find

Nicholas at all funny, at least not now anyway. As I've mentioned before, I find many of Nicholas' attempts to be 'funny' or 'amusing' to be utterly irritating. Largely because his attempts at humor rely on him trying to make a play on words whenever someone has made a challenge of some sort. Example, if someone challenges for repetition of the word 'gone', Nicholas will then say something ridiculous like 'you've gone too far'.

>
> In addition, his

attempts at trying to get laughs are usually based on stealing other people's better executed material, and nine times out of ten it ends up not working for Nicholas, because he ends up making a royal cock up out of it.

>
>

Or, whenever a panelist starts to insult him and challenge his authority, Nicholas then tries to redirect it agains the panelist, which also fails practically 100% of the time. This is very often evidenced by the fact that the audience tend to laugh when a panelist is insulting Nicholas, but whenever Nicholas tries to get his own back at the panelists, they boo, hiss, and jeer at him, or give absolutely no reaction at all. But what's also really irritating is that Nicholas always tends to have the same reaction: 'Isn't it interesting, whenever the panelists are ever rude to me you not only cheer, you also clap, but whenever I'm ever rude to them you always boo!'

>
> In

addition, Nicholas very often tends to have this rather vain notion that he is somehow irreplaceable and that he is the main source of comedy on the program. If you listen back over the years, whenever a panelist insults Nicholas for being unfair to them in some manner, Nicholas usually responds by saying 'Oh I do give them marvelous cues, don't I?' or 'You know, if I wasn't here to be the butt of your jokes, you wouldn't have the show you have, would you?'

>
> Although, I do recognize that Nicholas is human. He is prone to making

mistakes in his judgement calls on challenges. but what I don't like is this constant mantra or deluded belief he has about himself, in that he makes the claim that he is 'always fair' and that he is somehow 'always right' or that he is 'always listening' even though there are many more moments nowadays that make it clear he isn't listening. Especially after making an assertion that he isn't going to be bluffed out of his decisionmaking, when frequently he is bluffed into giving a decision to a panelist that is actually wrong.

>
>

Sometimes I worry about Nicholas though, surely at 86 years old, having outlived the Original Foursome, he must realize that its time for him to step down. I'm just afraid one day his heart will simply stop during a recording, and that will effectively mean that the show WILL die with Nicholas. Even though there are some that say that the should SHOULD die with Nicholas, I don't think that should be the case at all. Because many of us felt the same way about 'I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue', and they managed to continue on even without Humphrey Littleton.

>
> Still, Nicholas certainly does represent a part of

the show's enduring legacy. I think the only other person who is still around from the show's early days aside from Nicholas is Sheila Hancock. Nicholas has certainly endured much over the years, from being harangued by the likes of Derek, Kenneth, Clement, Peter and everyone else that's been on the show in the last 40 years, although I don't think he deserves to get a knighthood, he certainly has earned his OBE. Although I still think the only reason he got an OBE was because he was having an affair with the queen mother. ;)

>
> He has been there from the show's beginnings, has made grand attempts

to change with the times, which is very admirable to say the least. The fact that Nicholas hasn't had a heart attack from all of the pressure a show like this can generate is also rather admirable. I guess Nicholas isn't all that bad, still I wish he'd curb some of his attitudes and mannerisms on the show and just get on with it instead of boring us all to death with insignificant anecdotes and minutia.

>
> There you have it, my dissertation on Nicholas

Parsons, the good and the bad and the very ugly.

>