Just A Minute

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From: "simonbkelly@..." <simonbkelly@...>
To: just-a-minute@...
Sent: Wednesday, 18 December 2013, 23:26
Subject: RE: Re: [just-a-minute] JAM Series 68

Just got back from this evenings recording of JAM. :-)

This new series is being produced by Tilusha Ghelani who came on stage at 7.40pm to open the proceedings and introduce Nicholas.

Nicholas then did a little warm-up with the audience before introducing the four players:

Paul Merton, Alun Cochrane, Russell Kane and a new contender, Rebecca Front.

Sitting next to Nicholas keeping the score and blowing the whistle was Trudi Stevens.

Recording finally got underway about 7.50pm and continued until 9.10pm. The first episode they recorded consisted of the following rounds:

Dickensian London (Paul)
Chocolate (Russell)
An Irrational Fear (Rebecca)
Discovering my Roots (Alun)
A Double Bill (Paul)
How to Start a Revolution (Russell)
The Femme Fatale (Rebecca)
Bread or Toast (Alun)
Previously on Just a Minute... (Paul)
Lame Ducks (Russell)
Trolls (Rebecca)

Nicholas fluffed the ending, giving out the wrong scores and saying that Russell Kane had won when in fact he came second! Then he couldn't remember Trudi's name or who he should be crediting at the end. He insisted on doing a full retake, even though Tilusha said they could have edited it together.

It was very warm in the Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House so Nicholas took his jacket off before the second recording got underway. The subjects this time were:

A Habitual Lie (Alun)
My Celebrity Crush (Rebecca)
The Metaphysical Poets (Russell)
A Miniature Village (Paul)
A Benign Dictatorship (Alun)
Childish Behaviour (Rebecca)
Bingo Wings (Russell)
A Snake Charmer (Paul)
Origami (Alun)
Making a Confession (Rebecca)
The Back of My Hand (Russell)
Present and Correct (Paul)

There were a couple of retakes at the very end, one because of a recording glitch which required Nicholas to introduce the subject "Bread or Toast" again, and the second was for a clean whistle. There w ere many attempts at this by Trudi but the whistle just didn't sound right. Nicholas then a go with it but couldn't get it sounding correct either. Finally, Paul got out of his chair and had a go and managed to get a nice clean whistle sound to end the evening with.

It'll be interesting to see how many of these rounds make it to the final edit. They've certainly chosen some very strange subjects for this series! And in case you're wondering why I added an ellipsis after "Previously on JAM" it's because Nicholas introduced it as: "The next subject, it says here on the card: Previously on Just a Minute, dot dot dot."

Series 68 airs from Februar y 10th through to March 17th 2014.

Simon