The Nicholas Parsons-fronted Radio 4 show Just A Minute is to mark four and a half decades on air with ten special TV episodes on BBC Two starting later this month

Parsons will chair the television version of the show, announced last October, as he did for the very first radio broadcast back in 1967. He has not missed a show since then.

Airing weekdays at 6pm from March 26 to April 6, the BBC Two programme will stick to the long-running radio format, featuring a range of comics and performers talking for one minute on a given subject "without repetition, hesitation or deviation".

Show stalwarts Paul Merton, Stephen Fry, Graham Norton, Sue Perkins and Julian Clary will all appear on the TV version, along with new players like Russell Tovey, Ruth Jones, Hugh Bonneville and Jason Manford.

Radio 4 will also mark the birthday with Just A Minute Without Hesitation on March 17, featuring Parsons discussing the history of the show, and introducing classic performances from the likes of Merton, Clement Freud, Linda Smith, Shelia Hancock and Kenneth Williams.

There will be two Just A Minute in India specials on March 19 and March 23 at 6.30pm, as Parsons, Merton and regular panellist Marcus Brigstock head to Mumbai to greet the programme's legions of fans in the Indian Sub Continent.

They are joined by top Indian comedians Cyrus Broacha and Anuvab Pal for the shows, which were recorded in Mumbai's Comedy Store in front of a "lively, excited and sometimes unusually vocal audience of Mumbai urbanites".

Topics up for discussion included the legendary traffic in Mumbai, colonialism under the British Empire and 'It's Just Not Cricket'.

The shows will be followed by Parsons presenting his own Just A Minute Indian Adventure on April 2 at 11.30am, discussing how the programme rose to prominence in India on BBC World Service, and how it spawned a range of 'Indianised' versions of the game and 'jam' sessions among young Indian students.

Just A Minute airs 22 episodes a year on Radio 4 on Mondays at 6.30pm, repeated on Sundays at noon.

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