Just A Minute

Tonight I recorded another couple of episodes of Just A Minute with Paul Merton, Josie Lawrence, Sheila Hancock and of course Nicholas Parsons. Now ninety years old, Parsons is a wonder. He was not very well today, but battled through an unpleasant cough and a gammy leg, remaining upbeat, amusing and on top of this tricksy game. By my reckoning the five of us have a combined age of 326 (an average of over 65), which I don't think you'd ever see on Mock the Week. But then you'd have to watch for a month to see two women. It was an utterly joyous evening and one of my favourite things about my job is that I am now occasionally asked to take part in this historic programme. My only fear is that I will break it by being rubbish, but it is a robust format and can cope with me. It's a delicate balancing act of being cheeky without being rude, of joining in without saying too much, of knowing your place, but still making a contribution. Only this and Set List make me nervous and both present a similar challenge. I still have not ever achieved a full minute without interruption, but I came closer than before tonight (spoiler alert). I got some laughs though, but not as many laughs as I had listening to the others. 

But as always I enjoyed the after show chat in the green room. Merton and Parsons are full of stories about comedians and panellists of the past and as a comedy fanboy I could listen to them for hours. Tonight there was chat about the goons. I didn't know that Sellers had had a heart-attack when he was about 42 and had only survived because he was in LA at the time and five miles from the only hospital in the world that could have treated him.