What do you get when you cross an academic, a comedian, and one of Britain’s longest running and best-loved quiz shows?
The unlikely answer is: lessons for dementia care, according to a linguistics expert who has studied the winning tactics of contestants on Radio 4’s Just a Minute (JaM).
Cardiff University researcher Prof Alison Wray joined forces with deadpan comic Paul Merton on a paper for the journal, Comedy Studies, exploring how JaM’s guests manage the ‘brain fry’ cognitive overload of talking for 60 seconds without hesitation, repetition or deviation.