Gyles Brandreth

Up-and-coming TV presenter Michael Grade explains the evolution of a peculiar British cultural institution, in a lightly festive hour that begins with our host in full make-up, wig and tent-like dress. We learn how 18th-century impresario John Rich discovered harlequin shows were ten times more lucrative than Shakespeare; then how the specifics of a man delivering double entendres as a deliberately unconvincing woman gradually fell into place.

Grade chats with Gyles Brandreth, Richard Briers and Matthew Kelly about the demands of damehood. But the star of the show is Berwick Kaler, writer, director and dame of York's famous panto. The future of the art form looks safe with him.

This is the third attempt to put JAM on the box, the BBC having done it previously in 1994 and 1999. Parsons and Merton appear in each episode, with guests appearing being Sue Perkins, Gyles Brandreth, Stephen Fry, Liza Tarbuck, Graham Norton, Josie Lawrence and Julian Clary. There are also a fair number of new contestants: Jason Manford, Miles Jupp, Ruth Jones, Phill Jupitus, John Sergeant and Russell Tovey.

The format is the same, but there are some obvious changes; for a start, there's no scorer sitting next to Parsons. Instead he just has the scores on a screen, and the clock is started by a large button next to him. There's also a little bell rang to indicate they are moving into the final round.

Some things do remain the same, though. The studio is designed to look like the art deco BBC Radio Theatre, where the radio series is normally recorded. For some reason, however, the studio lights change from blue to purple when the subjects start. Why they need to do this I have no idea. I find the camerawork even more irritating. There's no need to cut from here to there every three seconds.

However, there's still much to enjoy from this show. I for one enjoy the little amusing asides that go through out each episodes. My personal favourite was in the fourth episode when the panel kept making jokes about Miles Jupp being the supposed love child of Gyles Brandreth. The jokes just kept snowballing throughout.

With regards to the TV adaptation, I know that there will always be people who will insist that it's not as good as the one on radio, but there are always people who complain about TV adaptations of radio shows. If we rejected every TV adaptation of a radio adaptation out of hand we wouldn't have had the TV successes of shows like Whose Line is it Anyway? or Little Britain.

I'd love to see more episodes of the TV version of Just a Minute; but I doubt they'll produce them. Unless they want to celebrate the show's 50th anniversary, that is, and given that Parsons is 88 years old that might be a bit dangerous.

Wordaholics was billed as a new comedy game show about the mystery and majesty of, yes you guessed it, words. With Gyles Brandreth in the chair, it was no surprise to hear Stephen Fry was on the panel, for the show certainly had similarities with TV's superior QI.

Sometimes Brandreth's smugness is a little over the top for my taste, but his endless enthusiasm for the subject matter did rub off. The obvious intellectual competitiveness, particularly between Fry and broacaster/comedian Natalie Haynes, also pepped up proceedings, and there was the added bonus that by the end of the half hour I had learned what a Melton Pad and a Piccadilly Weeper was - just in case I get asked at a dinner party in the near future.

Do you know what "Jedwood Justice" is? It is not, as the audience gathered for this new panel show obviously hope, some primeval punishment dished out upon the Grimes brothers. Fortunately, Stephen Fry knows exactly what it is, and host Gyles Brandreth is able to congratulate him with magniloquent verbosity.

Starting on Monday: Wordaholics

Wordaholics, Radio 4's new comedy panel game all about words, starts on Monday 20 February at 11.30am. You can find out more and you'll be able to hear the programme shortly after transmission on the Radio 4 website. On the Radio 4 blog Wordaholics presenter Gyles Brandreth takes us through his early years on BBC panel shows.

If I may say this without repetition, hesitation or deviation, a radio institution celebrates an anniversary on Monday as the splendid Nicholas Parsons introduces the panel show he has chaired since its inception in just a minute.

Doubtless the shades of such esteemed departed panellists as Clement Freud and Kenneth Williams will be issuing some hollow challenges from the wings as panellists Ross Noble, Jenny Eclair, Gyles Brandreth and Paul Merton are asked to pontificate on subjects given out in the original series back in 1967, from "Why I Wear a Top Hat" to "Knitting a Cablestitch Jumper".

Gyles Brandreth's wearing petticoats and heels

No one has ever accused the Duke of Edinburgh of being oversensitive. But there are fears that his legendary thick skin could be breached next month if he accepts Gyles Brandreth's invitation to a performance of Oscar Wilde's The Importance Of Being Earnest.

Interview: Benet and Gyles Brandreth - That's my boy (Link expired)

Self-proclaimed 'cult figure' Gyles Brandreth has passed on the performance bug to son Benet. Here, the pair tell Jackie McGlone the truth - but perhaps not the whole truth - about this family tradition.

Gyles Brandreth: The day I opened for Bernard Manning

The former MP reveals all to Marissa Burgess.