Overview

Just a Minute is a BBC Radio 4 radio comedy and television panel game chaired by Nicholas Parsons. Its first transmission on Radio 4 was on 22 December 1967, three months after the station's launch. The Radio 4 programme won a Gold Sony Radio Academy Award in 2003. The object of the game is for panellists to talk for sixty seconds on a given subject, "without repetition, hesitation or deviation". The comedy comes from attempts to keep within these rules and the banter among the participants. In 2011 comedy writer David Quantick ascribed Just a Minute's success to its "insanely basic" format, stating, "It's so blank that it can be filled by people as diverse as Paul Merton and Graham Norton, who don't have to adapt their style of humour to the show at all."

1. Ian Messiter

   Creator