Just a minute - it's Nicholas Parsons

By Jayne Warren - 07/02/2008

  How Nicholas Parsons made it onto the stage at all is a bit of a miracle. Born into a well-to-do professional family, his parents tried their utmost to thwart his dreams of becoming an actor, but his sheer determination finally won through - despite having a stutter and dyslexia. So what drove him?

“When I was about five,” he recalls, “a travelling circus came to Grantham where I was born, and I remember watching all these wagons, caravans, horses and elephants. I was captivated and intrigued, and when I actually went to see them, it was absolutely magical. If they'd have taken me I would have run away there and then. I especially loved the tumblers - in fact I used to tumble myself.

“Well, there were two clowns - called Cuckoo and Sparrow. One was always put upon by the other, and my older brother and I adopted these characters. I, of, course, was the put upon one. We went around the house for months on end calling each out to each other ‘Cuckoo!’ ‘Sparrow!’ It drove my poor mother quite mad. She and my father were, of course, totally, totally against me becoming an actor.

“I remember being taken to the cinema and that was it - I told all my schoolfriends that I wanted to be in films - to be an actor. Shirley Temple was a big star at that time, so the boys nicknamed me 'Shirley' for years.”

The natural stammer, he says, he has overcome with hard work and following his mother’s mantra of “mind over matter”. But, incidentally he remains the patron of the British Stammering Association.
“As for dyslexia, well of course in those days, no-one had heard of dyslexia. You were just assumed to be slow. But I did well at school because I committed everything to memory. I could absorb lots of information very quickly - and still can which is vital for running ‘Just A Minute’. I still write slowly, but I rely on memory. I think learning Latin was essential - it makes you think logically and sharpens the memory.

My mother worked really hard to stamp the idea of acting out of me. So I ended up working in the shipyards of Clydeside. It was another world. I stayed at the YMCA and got a boiler suit. I was like an alien to the other people with my accent and everything. But I survived.

“I ended up studying mechanical engineering at Glasgow University. After two years I went to sign up for military service - only to be told that I was doing vital war work at Clydeside. So after my apprenticeship, I qualified to join the merchant navy, was there for just two weeks - and then collapsed. It was a combination of exhaustion from studying, working long hours, eating a bad diet for a growing boy - and then spending the evenings getting involved in theatre shows.

After the war, Nicholas came back to London – as determined as ever to follow his star. “I'd heard about a play called 'The Hasty Heart' with parts for six young men, so I went to the production office and asked to see the production manager to audition for a part. He wouldn't see me, so I waited. And waited. I sat in that office for three days until they gave me an audition.

“Eventually I was given the part of the New Zealander - with absolutely no idea of the accent, of course. So I went to the Anzac Club - and sat and chatted to them. I'm a mimic - I started out doing impersonations - so I picked up the accent. I even got letters from people in the audience asking which part of New Zeland I was from!

"I’m now labelled as a presenter, but that’s just a facility I've acquired, and I've been successful at it.

So, from his perspective as an older celebrity in an age-conscious profession, does he think our society is ageist? “Oh yes, it's so ageist - it really is. People are not allowed to be racist, sexist or whatever anymore - but they continue to be ageist. Take ‘Just A Minute’ - many of the jokes are at my expense, of course, and a lot of them are about my age. I don't mind at all because its part and parcel of the show and we have a laugh, but it reveals something quite fundamental about our society.

“I was talking to someone about this just recently, and they said that joking about old age is probably the way people deal with their real anxieties about getting older and dying. It's as though laughing at it makes it less real. And the media fuel it, of course. But my take on age is that the years I live bear no relation to the age I am.

“In this profession, you meet such amazingly special people and the British have always been so good at improvisation, humour, irony and the unique ‘put down’ - as ably demonstrated in Just A Minute. Paul Merton has it in spades, and the show is the most amazing format for comedy because it generates its own fun, and laughter is the best thing we can have in life. It also takes huge discipline of thought as well.

“The other thing about Just A Minute is that fans of the programme range from 9 to 90: everyone loves it. We were discussing recently how the show is the absolute antithesis of comedy. You see, for most comedy, you pause for effect, and use repetition to emphasise - but the rules of Just A Minute allow for neither pausing nor repetition. But it works!

“Then there's Clement Freud. In the early days he was very fluent, and now he has these witty, off-beat comments which are simply wonderful. And there is such generosity in the competitiveness: the panel know instinctively when to let a new player just earn a few points. Remember Kenny Everett on marbles? No-one interrupted him, and we let him speak for 90 seconds. It’s great fun, like a party. But you see, the unexpected IS the show, its all improvisation, or 'living dangerously' as I put it.”

It’s fascinating to think that he was only given the Chair of the programme for the pilot but was originally penciled in as a panellist. Some 40 years on, it’s impossible to think of the show without him.

Says his wife, Annie: “He has no autocues, nothing - and he's so fast. And all the younger people on the show really love him. He's amazing, really.”

I’ll second that.