Author:Ian Messiter,Guests,Nicholas Parsons,Paul Merton
Just as uproariously funny – and terrifically popular – today as when it first began on BBC Radio 4 in 1967, Just a Minute challenges contestants to speak for one minute on a given subject without repetition, hesitation or deviation. Its mix of irreverent fun and ferocious competition has always attracted stellar names from the world of comedy and theatre, all of whom pit their wits – and their wit – against regular players including Kenneth Williams, Paul Merton (here making his first ever appearance), Derek Nimmo, Clement Freud and Peter Jones. Including these guests in the four archive programmes: Geraldine Jones, Alfred Marks and Tim Rice. The programmes are from 30 September 1968, 30 March 1977, 22 May 1979 and 25 April 1989.
Maxwell is a transportive narrator, able to convey the there-but-for-the-grace-of-God aspect of this horrendous yet hopeful story with terrific evocation.
—— Johnny Davis , Q MagazineFunny, full of love but refreshingly unsentimental
—— The London PaperMaxwell narrates their remarkable story with barrels of rough-and ready Glaswegian drollery
—— London LiteHis spirited determination to overcome all that he's been through is humbling to witness
—— GuardianA remarkable journey of rehabilitation... The story of Collins's catastrophic illness is horrific, but sometimes funny and, ultimately hopeful too
—— Sunday HeraldYou'll finish this remarkable book with a lump in your throat and admiration for the courage of both writer and subject
—— WordBeautifully penned...a heart warming and inspirational read
—— The ListHe has produced a remarkable autobiography . . . It makes gripping, sometimes unbearably sad, sometimes confusing reading . . . exhilarating, humane, zany, literary
—— SpectatorNo one can make you feel quite like Stephen Fry can . . . Funny and tormentedly frank
—— Time OutHugely enjoyable . . . compulsively readable . . . Fry is excellent on the details of memory, too, and always able to embellish them with effortless erudition . . . this engaging, engrossing read is as honest a portrait of a young liar as one could hope to read
—— ScotsmanHe is bubbly, funny and charming, and he gives his fans plenty of material if they want to speculate on why he is both so gifted and so wayward
—— The TimesThe jokes . . . transcend the complexes of the joker, turning the Stephenesque into a national as well as a family treasure
—— GuardianNot so much an autobiography, more a way of life; discursive, funny, sometimes almost unbelievably sad, opinionated, nostalgic and very infectious
—— Claire Rayner, New StatesmanFry can be funny about anything
—— Good Book GuideSo charming and so acute that one cannot help forgiving him
—— Daily Express