Camilla heard my fantasy about her wearing jodhpurs
... and so did Charles, says Just A Minute panellist GYLES BRANDRETH, because the Prince is such a fan of the Radio 4 hit he’s starring in it tomorrow
JuST about a year ago at a Christmas party, I bumped into Jonathan Cainer, the Mail’s much-loved astrologer, and I asked him for his prediction for 2016. He raised his glass of mulled wine, looked me in the eye and said simply: ‘Expect the unexpected.’ Jonathan knew his stuff because 2016 has turned out to be a year jam-packed with surprises, many of them unwelcome, like Jonathan’s own death in May.
But whatever the shocking ups and down of a mind-blowingly unpredictable year so far, this Christmas one complete surprise has cheered me up no end.
Tomorrow, I am taking part in a special edition of Radio 4’s longest-running panel game, and the Prince of Wales is top of the bill.
over the years, I have met many interesting and amusing people playing Just A Minute, but I never thought Prince Charles would be one of them.
We knew that as a boy, the heir to the throne was a fan of the madcap humour of The Goons — to the extent that Spike Milligan once repaid a royal compliment by calling Prince Charles a ‘grovelling b ***** d’.
But until now it’s been a well-kept secret that the Prince is also a Just A Minute devotee. He loves the programme and plays the game at home, too, leaving messages on his sons’ answerphones in Just A Minute style — without hesitation, deviation or repetition. The Duchess of Cornwall is also an avid listener. I found that out the hard way. once on the programme, challenged to talk about ‘My Secret Crush’, I conjured up an elaborate 60-second fantasy involving an imagined encounter with the young Camilla in her jodhpurs, smoking her Woodbines behind the stables. Inevitably, I met Her Royal Highness shortly after the broadcast and discovered that she had been listening.
Just a Minute is a very British institution. It has an audience of millions across the world, but while the format has been tried in other countries, it’s only the British version that has stood the test of time.
Tomorrow at 3pm, the Queen will broadcast her annual message to the Commonwealth. A bit earlier, her son will have got in first, taking to the airwaves with a very personal salute to Just A Minute as the show embarks on its Golden Jubilee.
And it’s clear that the Prince has been listening from the start, recalling with affection the idiosyncrasies of the early panellists, notably Peter Jones and Kenneth Williams.
Tune in to hear how he remembers them and to see how well he manages to speak for 60 seconds without hesitation, deviation or repetition. Tune in, too, to discover if anyone dares press the buzzer to stop the Heir Apparent in his tracks. (I bet you Paul Merton does. He’s a ruthless so-and-so.)
Charles volunteered to help celebrate the programme’s halfcentury not only because of his fondness for those classic panellists and his love of the English language (Shakespeare is his all-time hero), but because of his respect for the programme’s host who, at 93, is almost the same age as Charles’s father and who, like the Duke of Edinburgh, keeps on delivering the goods, year in year out, come rain or shine.
In almost 900 recordings since 1967, Nicholas Parsons hasn’t missed one.
I have known Nicholas for 50 years. He is one of my favourite people and Just A Minute is my favourite show. I reckon I have appeared on almost every TV or radio panel game ever invented — from Blankety Blank to Pointless, from Celebrity Squares to QI — but Just A Minute is special because it’s totally spontaneous and the only one recorded in real time.
When you take part in BBC TV’s Have I Got News For You, for example, they record for twoand-a-half hours and edit it down to 28 minutes. With Just A Minute, it’s ‘as live’.
THERE may be a nip or tuck to the links between the rounds, but the games are broadcast as they happen, against the clock. That unforgiving minute is timed to the second. That’s what provides the players with the adrenaline rush and gives the show its energy.
Blessed with a youthful voice, undiminished hearing (he doesn’t miss a thing) and the quickest wit, Nicholas Parsons is as good now as ever he was. He is a true national treasure.
There is a plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square that still needs a permanent statue on it. Let’s put Parsons on that plinth. The Prince of Wales would unveil the statue, for sure. Just A Minute is on Radio 4 tomorrow at 1.15pm