Just A Minute blog

A blog on the BBC radio programme Just A Minute

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Location: Wellington, New Zealand

March 09, 2017

the season so far

thought I'd post on the season so far - we are already halfway through it, sad to say. Still there must be a new season coming up, as they have already started recording for it - two shows with Paul Merton, Julian Clary, Pam Ayres and Zoe Lyons are in the bag.

Enjoyed the first show with Paul, Graham Norton, Josie Lawrence and Zoe. Josie was in great form. There was some comment on Twitter that it sounded like Paul and Graham don't like each other. I think this was referring to Paul making a big deal of Graham using one of his plyos - when he doesn't know anything about a subject he fills rime by saying Ï'm looking forward to talking about this, I know so much about it, I am really knowledgeable about this..."etc etc. This is a ploy Paul sometimes uses too. But I guess Paul feels Graham over-uses it or perhaps he just feels 40 seconds of it is just a bit boring. Anyway I don't get the feeling they dislike each other - it's just one of the ways Paul tries to keep interest going and keep the energy of the programme going.

The show with Paul, Gyles Brandreth, Sheila Hancock and Tom Allen was a top show. I thought Gyles was the best here (not just on the scorecard) - he was very inventive and funny every time he talked and the bit aboyt him losing more graciously was a deserved running joke. Sheila was great - I like it that she plays the show in the old style where she talks aboiut what she know about the subject rather than making up stories. That's very reminiscent of the way Kenneth Williams, Clement Freud, Peter Jones and Derek Nimmo used to play the game and while I do love the way Paul conjures up a fantasy world, it's nice to hear others using a different style. Tom Allen was interesting and pretty good - his voice sounds a little like Kenneth, though he needs to go a long way to be as outrageous as he was.

This week's show with Paul, Jenny Eclair, Marcus Brigstocke and Al Murray. Al Murray started well on his pet subject of pubs, but then he failed. Jenny was good and a bit different, Marcus good but didn't get in as often as usual, but this was very much a Paul show. Nothing wrong with that.