Pirates ahoy! Phill Jupitus visits Aardman Animations

The comedian meets the people who've spent five years making The Pirates! in an Adventure with Scientists!

To celebrate its 45th anniversary, the Radio 4panel show returns to TV for the first time since the 1990s. The hiatus is not surprising: the format of four competitors getting 60 seconds to speak on a subject "without repetition, hesitation or deviation" is hardly visual. Or so you might imagine. The first episode, which finds host Nicholas Parsons overseeing Paul Merton, Sue Perkins, Graham Norton and Phill Jupitus, reveals much about the panellists you might otherwise miss, notably Jupitus's genuine frustration at his own inability to avoid repetition.

It's been a Radio 4 article of faith for 45 years. So the Beeb is celebrating the birthday of Just A Minute by sticking it on TV. Call it a midlife crisis if you like, because it's hard to see the point. The strengths and weaknesses of the radio version remain. Nicholas Parsons - who looks surprisingly nervous for such a trouper - still warms the main chair. Paul Merton, Sue Perkins, Phill Jupitus and Graham Norton make up a textbook panel. And everything's exactly the same. So why not just stick to the special anniversary versions of the radio show? Could it be that Just A Minute is really easy to transfer, has a guaranteed audience and can be passed off as 'new comedy'? We hope not. Still, on the plus side, you could ignore the pictures and still listen to it while doing the ironing.

The 45th anniversary of the quaint Radio 4 panel show, in which contestants must talk for 60 seconds on any given subject "without repetition, hesitation or deviation", sees it honoured with a first television outing for 13 years. The opener of 10 nightly episodes calls upon TV quiz staples Paul Merton and Phill Jupitus to provide the deadpan humour, alongside Sue Perkins and Graham Norton, while long-standing host Nicholas Parsons marshalls proceedings with a boyish grin that belies his 88 years.

Phill Jupitus interview

The Buzzcocks Phill Jupitus is, it transpires, simply one facet of this interesting man who has more to his character than it might first appear.

Video: Jupitus takes satirical look at the Big Society

Comedian Phill Jupitus is starring in a new political satire called Big Society which is a spoof music hall show poking fun at Prime Minister David Cameron, the coalition government and pretty much everyone else in a position of power.

So is this a return to an age-old tradition of sending up the establishment on stage?

The BBC's Entertainment Correspondent Colin Paterson went along to rehearsals.

Phill Jupitus sends up the Big Society

Comedian Phill Jupitus is starring in a new political satire called Big Society!, a spoof music hall show poking fun at Prime Minister David Cameron, the coalition government and pretty much everyone else in a position of power.

A best-of compilation proving that this has been yet another strong series. Your hosts include Tinie Tempah, who was confident enough not to try to be funny all the time, but was funny when he did try; and James Blunt, who was even more confident in that he did try to be funny all the time, and was. At one point Blunt had Phill Jupitus doubled over laughing at a naughty joke about the Pussycat Dolls. We can only hope Blunt devotes more and more of his time to comedy.

Meanwhile, the myths surrounding Alice Cooper's rock antics gave the show's gag-writers one of their best nights, and earlier this month Cilla Black made a surprise appearance.

Phill Jupitus to star in Big Society musical

Comedian Phill Jupitus is to appear in a new musical at the recently reopened City Varieties music hall in Leeds.

The music quiz returns for a 25th series with an unsafe pair of hands at the tiller: fresh from baffling the nation as a judge on Britain's Got Talent, David Hasselhoff is your host. Bracing themselves to laugh uncomfortably as the Hoff delivers jokes he doesn't get to a spot six inches to the right of the camera are regular captains Phill Jupitus and Noel Fielding.

Among tonight's guests are replacement Sugababe Amelle Berrabah, chronic jazz-hander Louie Spence and comedian Peter Serafinowicz.