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Brief But Memorable - Arthur Smith

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BobbyJun 14, 2010
 

 
Someone I feel is perhaps quintessential in the 'Brief But Memorable' category of JAM panelists is without a doubt Arthur Smith.

He was fantastic on the program in that he brought not only humor, but really livened things up. I remember his first appearance in the early 90's during the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh.

I loved the running gag that was brought in about Billy Bremner, and also about the Bay City Rollers. One of my favorite bits during his debut appearance was during the subject of 'The Big Time', in which he proceeded to repeat the subject on the card about eleven times before being challenged for repetition.

he seemed very much poised to become a semi-regular, which he kinda did, in that he took part in the televised version of Just a Minute between 94 and 95 and then came back to the radio version in 97 while the show was in Manchester.

From the few examples available regarding his television appearances on JAM, he was without a doubt hilarious, largely because of the way he rebelled against the rules, the way he'd just challenge based on his humorous observations of what the other panelists seemed to be doing. I remember on during one subject, I believe it was 'The Chamber of Horrors', he went off talking about there being some 'enormous teeth', which I believe was an implied dig at Janet Street Porter (which Nicholas had mentioned at the start of the program in the way he was introducing Arthur Smith).

Then on the subject of 'Alternative Uses for Buckingham Palace', Arthur was given free reign to do just about anything and rant and rave about how useless the Royal Family was and the fact that tourists are brought in and just putting more money into the Queen's coffers while the rest of the lot avoid having to pay taxes, and then made a reference to how the Russians dealt with the Romanovs, and then starts going off about Marcel Proust's series of novels 'À la recherche du temps perdu' and then speaking French gibberish for another minute before the whistle is finally blown.

another one of my favorite things from one of his appearances comes from when Ted Robbins was also on the program. Arthur's outrage over the fact that Ted was allowed to get away with challenging himself was absolutely priceless, and its the sort of thing that I feel is really missing from the way the show is now.

I miss Arthur's presence on the show, it was very refreshing, and you never knew what to expect from Arthur, which I think was key, especially on a program as utterly random and spontaneous as Just a Minute.

 
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