Echoing the title of the quiz he has presented for 47 years, the reaction of Nicholas Parsons, when asked at the Cheltenham literature festival to nominate his successor, was: Just a Minute. He also used a tone and vocabulary unfamiliar from the Radio 4 show: “I don’t want to think about it, and how dare you ask that bloody question!”
In refusing to acknowledge the possibility of giving up work, even at the age of 91, Parsons is an extreme example of a culture that has outlawed statutory retirement. But, in his Cheltenham answer, Parsons was being shrewd rather than rude. Although it might seem odd to compare him to Madonna, Parsons has proved just as canny at career management and reinvention, intermittently diversifying into The Rocky Horror Show, books and Edinburgh festival chatshows to keep his brand bankable.
So he will have observed that once his fellow broadcasting veteran Bruce Forsyth acknowledged he might finish, he was effectively finished. In so firmly killing off Forsyth-style speculation about retirement and successors, Parsons ensures that his career goes on repeating rather than deviating for as long as wits allow. May he have millions more minutes.
