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WELCOME TO JUST A MINUTE! starring KENNETH WILLIAMS, DEREK NIMMO, CLEMENT FREUD and ANDREE MELLY, chaired by NICHOLAS PARSONS (Radio, 2 January 1973)
THEME MUSIC ANNOUNCER: We present Kenneth Williams, Derek Nimmo, Clement Freud and Andree Melly in Just A Minute, and as the Minute Waltz fades away here to tell you about it is our chairman Nicholas Parsons. NICHOLAS PARSONS: Thank you, thank you very much indeed, hello and welcome to Just A Minute. And as you just heard once more we have four most exciting and er experienced players of the game. So let me right away ask them all in turn if they can speak for just one minute on some unlikely subject without hesitation, without repetition or without deviating from the subject which is on the card. And we’ll begin the show this week with Clement Freud, and Clement that subject that Ian has thought of is fan mail. Can you talk about that for 60 seconds starting now. CLEMENT FREUD: Fan mail is rather like... chain mail... BUZZ NP: Kenneth Williams has... KENNETH WILLIAMS: Hesitation. NP: Yes, right away I agree, it was a definite hesitation. Rather keen and rather sharp, right at the beginning of the show but it was a hesitation. Kenneth, correct challenge, so you gain a point and you take over the subject... KW: Quite right! NP: There are 56 seconds left, fan mail starting now. KW: Mine is never-ending, it’s like some great stream through the letterbox. And it includes extraordinary items. I’ve had locks of hair, I’ve even had a bit of cake sent to me. Someone said ‘we’d like you to be in on the celebrations we enjoyed so much, as you have given us sooooo much... BUZZ NP: Andree Melly challenged. ANDREE MELLY: Repetition of two lots of so much. NP: There was so much and so much and so much pleasure and so much cake and so much frivolity. Andree I agree with that challenge so you gain a point and of course the subject, and there are 25 seconds left on fan mail starting now. AM: The fan mail I’ve received has mostly been from women which is somehow a little bit disappointing. I occasionally get a lonely soldier who writes a very long nice letter... BUZZ NP: Clement Freud has challenged. Why? CF: Hesitation. NP: Oh I don’t think so, no. No, I thought she was going to say something else. No I don’t think she hesitated so I disagree with that challenge so Andree gets a point for a wrong challenge and there are 26 seconds on fan mail, Andree starting now. AM: They usually want a photograph or at least that you reply and give them your autograph. It’s an extraordinary thing to write a fan letter to somebody you don’t know. I have done it two or three times to actresses that I thought were simply marvellous in particular parts they played. But they were people that I had met once or twice. I don’t think... BUZZ NP: Derek Nimmo has challenged. DEREK NIMMO: You’d written letters once or twice, didn’t she. AM: Oh did I? NP: Yes you write letters once or twice and met them once or twice. So Derek, a correct challenge for you and there are six seconds on fan mail starting now. DN: I did once receive a fan letter. It was from a Miss Merriman... BUZZ NP: Clement Freud has challenged, why? CF: The subject is fan mail, not a fan letter. NP: Yes but you see, a fan letter is part of your fan mail. So that was an incorrect challenge, I disagree... CF: Very good! NP: You try to get in very cleverly just before... CF: No, no, I trued to challenge. NP: It was a good challenge but I disagree with it. So there are four seconds on fan mail with you Derek starting now. DN: One of the most enjoyable things on long summer evenings is to shove a penny stamp on a ... WHISTLE NP: After 60 seconds Ian Messiter blows his whistle. That tells us the time is up and whoever is speaking at that second gains the extra point. It was Derek Nimmo who’s got a commanding lead at the end of the first round and it is so nice in the first round of the show to have heard from everybody for once. Derek we’d like you to begin the next round, the subject is anything I like and would you talk about anything you like for 60 seconds starting now. DN: Anything I like is really rather a comprehensive question to be given to one, isn’t it really? Because I think I could talk about... BUZZ NP: Clement Freud has challenged, why? KW: Deviation. CF: Deviation. NP: Why? CF: Well it’s not, it’s an answer. NP: A comprehensive question to be given to one. Yes, you’re... DN: You’re asking me to speak about it, that’s the point surely. NP: Yes but, no, no, it’s a clever challenge... DN: Is it? NP: Anything I like.. DN: I don’t think it’s remotely clever! It was rather boring like most of his challenges actually! NP: No, no, a comprehensive question, deviation, it is not a question, it’s a statement, ah, it could be an answer as Clement said. Clement I agree with that challenge so you have 53 seconds on anything I like starting now. CF: Of all the things I like, and the subject anything I like is surely permitted to embrace this, Derek Nimmo is probably my favourite thing. I was going to say that I prefer him to cats, bicycles and... metronomes... BUZZ NP: Kenneth Williams challenged. KW: Hesitation. NP: Yes... KW: He was sort of going ridiculous like er er, I mean he’s half cut... NP: He was going as slow as you go sometimes, wasn’t he? KW: No, I’m always very fast in this game. People always say to me “I don’t know how you talk so quickly, it’s quite incredible!”. NP: It’s incredible how you talk incredibly quickly... KW: Definite hesitation. NP: Yes definitely, he couldn’t think of any more strange things with which to compare Derek Nimmo. I agree with the challenge therefore Kenneth, we’re now going to hear from you on the subject of anything I like and there are 43 seconds left starting now. KW: Anything I like is characterised by the fact that it will of course be of impeccable taste. Everybody says “what nice things you have and nice things you wear...” BUZZ NP: Derek Nimmo challenged. DN: Repetition of nice things. KW: Ah I meant nice the first time pleasant, and nice the second time precise. DN: What did you mean for things? KW: Eh? DN: You said things twice as well. KW: Oh things, yes. Oh, oh well! I must say I think you’re being very pedantic. NP: I don’t think he is, I... DN: I think you’re being very repetitious! NP: No I agree with the challenge. I will give you the first challenge which is the one I’m supposed to accept which is nice. And there are 20 seconds left for you Derek on anything I like starting now. DN: I once saw a rather strange monk wandering through a field. And I thought to myself this is what I would like to be. I would like to be a... BUZZ NP: Clement Freud has challenged. CF: Repetition of I would like to be. NP: I would like to be, that phrase was repeated. DN: Quite right! Very well listened I thought! NP: Not very sportingly given away really. All right there are eight seconds on anything I like starting now. CF: A fish finger on a summer’s afternoon, sitting in the cricket pavilion... BUZZ NP: Kenneth Williams has challenged, why? KW: A fish finger on a summer afternoon can’t sit anywhere! He said a fish finger on a summer afternoon sitting in a cricket pavilion! What a load of rubbish! It’s (unintelligible) poor thing, it’s got no animation, has it! NP: I did, I did think he was going to say it wasn’t the fish finger that was sitting in the pavilion. Sitting in the pavilion, I, and he was going on like that. But... KW: Ah get out of it! Don’t try it on with me! Making it up as you go along! NP: I’m sure that is what he was going to say... KW: Yes! NP: But as it was such a lovely challenge, I think we’ll give you the benefit of the doubt because we love to hear from you. And Clement for once is in fourth place which has never happened before. So, so we’ll be a little tough there on Clement because I think that he was going on to something. Give you the subject with two seconds to go on anything I like starting now. KW: Anything I like has got to be beautiful... WHISTLE NP: Kenneth struck a chord there which draws applause from the audience, not only for the the thought, but also for the fact he was speaking when the whistle went. And Kenneth Williams your turn to begin. Forget-me-nots. Can you talk about forget-me-nots for 60 seconds starting now. KW: Well under their botanical name I think they’re myosotis. They’re pretty little things, you know. I must say this idea of the token being that you will not forget the person who gave them to you. Beautiful and charming and could be said to be almost adumbrated to the idea of consolation. And perhaps there in that tribute lies the very thing for which we’re all searching on this road to which we ah... BUZZ NP: (laughs) Derek Nimmo, ah, what... DN: Hesitation really. NP: Yes I’m not surprised after all that! Hesitation and dry up. Anyway he searched down his road and got lost. Um Derek I agree with your challenge and there are 28 seconds on forget.. forget-me-nots starting now. DN: The bow and the wreath and the cloved hitch are some of the knots I would most like to forget... BUZZ NP: Kenneth Williams. KW: The subject is forget-me-nots, it’s hyphenated, so we can’t have knots. NP: Well actually Kenneth, we do, I think we have established in the past that you take what you hear, not... KW: No! Forget-me-nots are flowers! You can’t talk about wreath knots and hitch knots... NP: No, no, it’s what you hear... KW: Otherwise we could go on about our granny, couldn’t we, or... NP: That’s exactly what Derek is doing... KW: How is your nots on the card spelt? NP: It doesn’t matter, it’s how it sounds. KW: Mmmmm is it? NP: Yes! Otherwise you’d have the subject in front of you and study it for ages before we started. KW: Mmmm. NP: And then you would not forget-me-not, would you. KW: Mmmm. NP: Twenty-two seconds on forget-me-nots Derek starting now. DN: When I was a boy scout, I was always particularly prepared and I always gave to my cub... BUZZ NP: Andree Melly has challenged. AM: Repetition, two always and I’m not going to be intimidated. NP: For two always you may have it because that’s a correct challenge, you have 11 seconds on forget-me-nots starting now. AM: A hazy blue, how beautiful they look in an English garden, with the dew on them in the early morning, the sun rising in the sky. This is something specially... BUZZ NP: Derek Nimmo has challenged, why? DN: Repetition, she’s using my dialogue! I always talk about early morning and the dew and things. She doesn’t do that. NP: I know but she’s perfectly at liberty to... DN: Repetition! NP: As long as you don’t repeat what you’ve said yourself. You can repeat what everybody else has had. I disagree with that challenge Derek, so Andree has another point and there’s three seconds on forget-me-nots Andree starting now. AM: If you cut this particular flower, it doesn’t last very long... WHISTLE NP: So Andree Melly gained quite a few points in that round and she has moved into second place behind Derek Nimmo. Kenneth’s still in third place and Clement is still in fourth place. And Clement it is your turn to begin, women’s beauty parlours. Why Ian Messiter thought of that subject for you to start with, I don’t know. But would you talk to us about it for 60 seconds starting now. CF: Annan’s Beauty Palace is a place I like to go to very much, because of all the towns in the Middle East, that is probably my favourite one. And the palace contained therein has relics and memorabilia of which I have written to my people and said “here is where you ought to stay on your next... evening...” BUZZ NP: Derek Nimmo’s challenged. DN: Hesitation, he was grinding to a complete stop. NP: Yes... DN: People... drone... NP: We were fascinated to know what on earth he was talking about! Deviation, hesitation, but we’ll have him for hesitation. CF: Why deviation? KW: I think it’s a disgrace the way you’re picking on people’s mannerisms! Good gracious! I mean... NP: I know... KW: There’s a certain whimsicness. He’s not a person who talks very quickly anyway! But to seize on people’s weaknesses like that... NP: I know... KW: Most unchivalrous of you, Nimmo! Horrid! Horrid! Horrid! NP: I think it was quite wrong of him to try and do it the same way you do it. KW: Yes! Horrid! Really horrid! He must apologise immediately. NP: No, hesitation, I agree Derek. And you keep, you have the subject with you now with 32 seconds on women’s beauty parlours starting now. DN: I went to a women’s beauty parlour in Hong Kong. It was quite an extraordinary experience. The lady in charge elected to give me a massage which I had not requested... BUZZ NP: Kenneth Williams has challenged. KW: The subject is lady’s beauty parlour, you wouldn’t get a massage in a lady’s beauty parlour. You’re talking about another kind of beauty parlour so I think you’re deviating from the subject. NP: Oh yes, you can have a facial massage. KW: No, the subject is women’s beauty parlours. NP: Yes and if you have a woman’s beauty parlour, you can have... KW: No, he said a massage. DN: I said I went into a women’s beauty parlour... NP: And he had a massage, it could be a facial massage... KW: No women’s beauty parlour would give him a massage! Now then come on! NP: Why not? I’m not going to suggest it’s because... I mean no. You can... KW: No... NP: You can have a massage, you can go to a women’s beauty parlour and have your hair cut by a, by a female hairdresser and they might massage your scalp at the same time. Does that satisfy you? KW: Well if you go out to women’s beauty parlours, having your scalp massaged! NP: Derek and I go together, usually in Hong Kong! I disagree with the challenge so you have another point and there are 23 seconds left on women’s beauty parlours starting now. DN: if you have a spare afternoon, go down the Brompton Road in London in... England and there... BUZZ NP: Andree Melly’s challenged. AM: Hesitation. NP: Yes, I agree, yes he couldn’t think where he was because he’s been away for so long! Andree you have the subject now of women’s beauty parlours with 17 seconds left starting now. AM: They’re usually decorated in a kind of pale pink or soft lilac. The people there have a particular attitude towards you... BUZZ NP: Derek Nimmo has challenged you. DN: Two words, par-ticular! Deviation. NP: Deviation on what? DN: She said par-ticular. She knows she did! NP: Well she was spitting and then said par-ticular. Anyway it is very difficult when the words don’t come out just in tact like that. But I suppose really it is deviation. Derek you have the subject and nine seconds on women’s beauty parlours starting now. DN: The curious thing about women’s beauty parlours is that they’re mainly enconced... ensconced, enponced... BUZZ DN: I want that word again! CF: Hesitation. NP: After that word I’m not surprised. DN: I don’t know what I’m talking about! Absolute rubbish! I’m so sorry! NP: A woman’s beauty parlour enponced somewhere? Really? DN: I’m sorry! I’m sorry! NP: Some of the places you’ve been to abroad, I’d keep quiet about, Derek! Clement, I agree with the challenge and you have four seconds on women’s beauty parlours starting now. CF: If you walk down Oxford street, you find more women’s beauty parlours... WHISTLE NP: Clement Freud was then speaking when the whistle went so he has now leapt forward to third place alongside Kenneth Williams. Andree’s still in second place, Derek’s way out in the lead. Andree your turn to begin, enjoying myself. Can you talk on that subject for 60 seconds starting now. AM: I can enjoy myself, up a mountain, down fairly low at the bottom of the sea, or in a very hot bath. That’s one of the really nicest places with lots of expensive soap and ... BUZZ NP: Kenneth Williams. KW: Hesitation. NP: Yes he got in that bath with the soap and it all went! She enjoyed herself too much and she dried up. There are 46 seconds on enjoying myself Kenneth starting now. KW: Enjoying myself is often accompanied by terrible feelings of guilt because one realises that this terrible activity is of course indulgent! And the Christiatic tells us that this is simple. Well of course again and again... BUZZ NP: Clement Freud has challenged. CF: Repetition. NP: What of? CF: Of course, of course, again and again! You pick! NP: All right, I give it to you Clement and you have 31 seconds on enjoying myself starting now. CF: I had a Latin master who said that enjoying yourself was an evil. On no account, he said... BUZZ NP: Kenneth Williams has challenged. KW: Two saids. NP: Yes I’m afraid so. LAUGHTER FROM THE AUDIENCE NP: The laughter is because Kenneth gets so excited when he gets one back at somebody who’s done it to him previously. Kenneth you have the subject back now with 24 seconds on enjoying myself, just like you look like now, enjoying yourself, starting now. KW: Of course this is a sensation... BUZZ NP: Clement Freud has challenged. CF: The third of course. NP: I’m not going to give it on this occasion because he was really trying to get going and he was enjoying himself as well... CF: Oh! NP: I won’t give a point... CF: Is that, when you’re trying to get going, it doesn’t matter what you do? NP: I’m not inventing any new rule, it just means that I am just going to be generous... CF: It’s fascinating! KW: How dare you challenge the chairman! I’ve never seen anything like it! I mean, it’s blatant, isn’t it! It’s just blatant! I mean you must have authority, Clement! You cannot fly in the face of authority! NP: Kenneth Williams was enjoying himself and the audience therefore enjoying themselves. I’m just not going to charge anything for that and say he starts again, there are 23 seconds left starting now. KW: Well of course... BUZZ LAUGHTER FROM DN AND THE AUDIENCE CF: We’ve already established... KW: What he does is he inhibits people! That’s all he does! He’s done that... NP: But look, the point is if I can’t give it to Clement Freud, I can’t give it to Andree Melly who challenged then. So you’ve got to go again Kenneth, you have 20 seconds left starting now. KW: Throwing one’s legs in the air on a wet lawn and lying in a bath perfumed. Or standing in the sunlight at an open window, looking across the fields and smelling new mown hay... WHISTLE NP: So Kenneth really enjoyed himself and so we all did and so he really, with everybody else’s help, leapt forward there. Kenneth, it’s your turn to begin, the subject that Ian has selected for you is Tutenkahmen or as a lot of people pronounce it now Tuten-kah-moon! And I find it very difficult when you have to say Tuten-kah-moon’s tomb! It doesn’t sound quite right! So Tuten-kah-moon, Tutenkahmen, 60 seconds starting now. KW: There was a message in the paper about taxi drivers. A party of Americans on a journey and when they got out, they said “where is the boy King with all the gold?” and... BUZZ NP: Clement Freud has challenged. CF: Deviation. NP: Why? CF: Americans don’t speak like that! NP: I know but actually he was not doing, he didn’t establish he was doing an impersonation. He established to me... KW: Thank you Nicholas! Thank you! Quite right! Thank you! NP: He was saying what the Americans said... KW: Exactly! And not giving a performance! Thank you! NP: Because if they’d been speaking, if they’d been Italian... KW: Yes! NP: If they were Italian and he’d done it in Italian, it would have been very difficult wouldn’t it? CF: Not for them! KW: Yes that’s right Nick! NP: So I disagree with the very tough but clever challenge and there are 50 seconds for you on Tutankahmen Kenneth starting now. KW: And it transpired that they were at Tooting Common because their... their expression, you see, was interpreted wrongly by the driver who’d thought they said (in American accent) “Tooting Common” and took them near... BUZZ NP: Derek Nimmo has challenged, why. DN: Deviation, they didn’t say anything like that, they said “where’s the boy King?” NP: Actually you did at the beginning say, they got in and said, not with an American accent, but they said “will you take us to the boy King” or where... KW: No I didn’t, I said they got out when he drove them there and said “where is the boy King?” Tooting Common has no sign of any boy King! NP: That’s right! You’re quite right, you did say that Kenneth, it comes back to me now, so therefore you never established that they got in and said “take us to Tutan-kah-moon”. KW: Yes. NP: So there we are Derek, I give the benefit of the doubt to him, yes. So Kenneth you have the subject still and there are 34 seconds left on Tutankahmen starting now. KW: Well now let us get more academic. Tutankahmen of course means living image of Amman, who in the Egyptian mythology is the King of all the... BUZZ NP: Ah Derek Nimmo has challenged. DN: Repetition of King. NP: This time I agree with Derek’s challenge, he gains a point and there are 23 seconds on Tutankahmen starting now. DN: The story of Tutankahmen is really rather a sad one I think. Like most Spanish ladies Carmen was particularly beautiful when she was young. But through eating a lot of very fatty food, in particular fish fingers... BUZZ DN: ..she put on an enormous amount of... NP: You challenged, Kenneth, why? KW: Deviation on a number of points. NP: Well would you care to give us one of those points now. KW: Because no matter how it sounds, Carmen is not on that card, no matter how it sounds! NP: We’ve been though all this with our blooms Kenneth! We probably all know that Carmen... KW: It’s one word, dearie! And he said Carmen! NP: But we have established it’s how it sounds! KW: All right, it don’t sound like Tutankahmen! It just sounds like Carmen! NP: Yeah but you’ve established it for us, it doesn’t sound like Tutankahmen! KW: Carmen doesn’t sound like Tutankahmen! NP: But Carmen sounds like Kahmen! KW: If it did one would be continually mixed up between the opera and this boy King in Egypt. And everyone would wonder what they were watching, wouldn’t they! NP: This is exactly what Derek has very cleverly or artfully, which ever way you look at it, done for us. So you can’t challenge on that, because if he wants to take the sounding to mean Tutan Carmen and they’re all tooting at Carmen... KW: Well all right, what’s the tooting got to do with it then? NP: Well they were tooting at all Carmen because she was blowing a few raspberries to the audience or something! Now Derek has a point because I disagree with the challenge and there are 11 seconds on Tutan-kah-moon or Tutankahmen starting now. DN: Actually of course as he came from Spain it would have been more accurate... BUZZ NP: Clement Freud has challenged. CF: Ah two actuallys. KW: Yes I’m afraid, repetition, yes! DN: There was only one actually! KW: It’s a shame, but you can’t get away from it. NP: Would you like to take over for a minute Kenneth? Clement you have the subject and there are seven seconds left on Tutankahmen or Tutan-kah-moon starting now. CF: When I went to this Glaswegian fun palace my bumper car was number 210 and at the end of the allotted time... BUZZ NP: Kenneth Williams has challenged. KW: Deviation, it’s nothing to do with an Egyptian sun God. It’s all about fun palaces and this bumper car! I mean! It’s deviation isn’t it. NP: Just a minute Kenneth, do keep quiet. What is it Clement? CF: My bumper car was number two hundred and 10 and at the end of the allotted minute... NP: No, no, I will accept Tutankahmen and this Spanish lady Carmen but I will not accept two-ten er... CF: Two-ten come in! NP: Two-ten... CF: In Glasgow! KW: Two-ten come in! I see! NP: BUt you did establish that the man had a Glaswegian, if you’d said (in Scottish accent) “Tutankahmen” but you didn’t say put on the Glaswegian accent. CF: He kept interrupting me! NP: if you’d done it with a Glaswegian accent, if you’d said.... DN: But he couldn’t do it with an accent! Kenneth couldn’t do it with an accent! KW: Did you say... NP: if you had established that the Glaswegian... KW: It’s a bad... NP: Shut up Kenneth Williams! If you had established that the man was speaking with a Glaswegian accent I would have given it to you. But you didn’t say that he had a Glaswegian accent, therefore I give it to Kenneth and he has one... DN: Why didn’t Kenneth... NP: Shut up Derek Nimmo! DN: ... do it with an accent when he was talking about the Americans? NP: Kenneth Williams has a point and half a second to go, and I think we have to wind up after this half-second starting now. KW: And you see the Egyptian... WHISTLE NP: Ladies and gentlemen, I think there’s only one thing to do and that is now to wind up. At the end of this particular edition of Just A Minute it was a very strange situation. Clement Freud for once and I can’t remember it happening before, did finish up in fourth place. But he was only one point... Derek Nimmo led the applause then. He was only one point behind Andree Melly who was four points behind Kenneth Williams. But none of them managed to overtake Derek Nimmo who is once again this week’s winner. We do hope that you’ve enjoyed Just A Minute and will want to tune in again next time. Until then from all of us here, good-bye. THEME MUSIC ANNOUNCER: The chairman of Just A Minute was Nicholas Parsons, the programme was devised by Ian Messiter and produced by David Hatch. |
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