JAM today

On the page a minute’s worth of words doesn’t look like much. A hundred and forty-four or thereabouts. But try spouting forth for 60 seconds on any given subject without hesitation, deviation or repetition and those 144 words become an awful lot to find, especially when they have to be summoned up at speed from some inner reservoir of thoughts and phrases. Maybe that’s the reason why Just a Minute is still such a fixture on the Radio 4 schedule.

The panellists make it sound so easy that we’re always puzzled when a new, unpractised contestant struggles to survive for longer than 20 seconds. We’re puzzled but we also relish their embarrassment. We feel superior. If only we were invited on to the show, we would be able to talk, no problem. Deep down, though, we’re also reliving all those moments when we, too, have been lost for words in an interview, at a party, when trying to explain something we should know about. The temptation to ‘umm’ and ‘aah’ becomes irresistible. To be articulate, fluent and at the same time provoke laughter is not as easy as it sounds, especially when subjects as far-flung as You Can Take a Horse to Water and Waffling are thrust upon the panellists without a moment’s notice.

Incredibly, Just a Minute has been on air now for 45 years, since the first days of Radio 4 in December 1967. The pilot edition was not a success and the programme was only saved by the determination of the then producer, David Hatch (later the Controller of Radio 4), who threatened to leave the BBC if JAM was not allowed a second life. The topics on that first show (given a repeat outing in a recent anniversary programme) are not at all what you might expect from a programme aired in the year of Sergeant Pepper and the Summer of Love.