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As Nicholas Parsons points outs in his introduction to each of these four broadcasts, Just a Minute has survived all these years by not only being extremely funny, but by evolving- adapting to tastes and times, trying out new things, some successful, some not. The first broadcast on this set, from the late 1960's, came as a real shock to me. Firstly, there are only three contestants, not the four which I thought had always been the case. The pace of the show is far faster than today, and with a different interpretation of the rules! Repetition is frequently allowed- this was before the rule allowing only the subject on the card to be repeated. So you keep expecting challenges which don't come! There are other substantial differences which you will hear on these discs. But the essence of the show, which is the performance and the interplay of the contestants, is there from the beginning. Kenneth Williams is hilarious, although he does get upstaged by Peter Cook on one show; in fact Cook virtually takes over the game. And there are those wonderful jibes at Nicholas Parsons, present all those years ago, just like today. A wonderful collection of classic radio comedy.
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