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Yes Minister

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Yes Minister
The title card of Yes Minister
Created byAntony Jay
Jonathan Lynn
StarringPaul Eddington
Nigel Hawthorne
Derek Fowlds
Opening themeRonnie Hazlehurst
Country of originUnited Kingdom
No. of episodes39
Production
Camera setupMulti-camera
Running time30 minutes
Original release
NetworkBBC Two
Release25 February 1980 –
28 January 1988

Yes Minister was a satirical British sitcom transmitted by BBC television and radio between 1980 and 1984. This was followed by a sequel, Yes, Prime Minister, which ran from 1986 to 1988. All 38 episodes were written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn and all but one last half an hour.

Set in the private office in Whitehall of a British government cabinet minister (and later 10 Downing Street), the series followed the ministerial career of James Hacker MP, played by Paul Eddington, and his various struggles to bring in legislation against the administrative will of the British Civil Service, in particular his Permanent Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby, played by Nigel Hawthorne and his more helpful Principal Private Secretary played by Derek Fowlds. Almost every programme ended with the eponymous line, "Yes, Minister" (or "Yes, Prime Minister").

A critical and popular success, the series was recipient of a number of awards, including several BAFTAs and in 2004 came sixth in Britain's Best Sitcom. It also gained notoriety as being the favourite television programme of the then British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher.[1]

Plot

Template:Spoiler The dominant running theme is the struggle between (The Rt Hon.) James "Jim" Hacker (played by Paul Eddington), the newly-appointed Minister in the (fictional) Department of Administrative Affairs, and his civil servants and ministerial colleagues. Sir Nigel Hawthorne played Sir Humphrey Appleby, KCB, MVO, MA (Oxon), a senior civil servant, Permanent Secretary of the Department of Administrative Affairs, with Derek Fowlds as Hacker's Principal Private Secretary, Bernard Woolley. Woolley typically finds himself torn by his personal allegiance to Hacker, and his institutional duty to the department and to Sir Humphrey, his real boss.

The overriding goal in any politician's professional life is re-election. In order to achieve this, they must be seen to act in order to stand out in the mind of the voters as effective people. Civil servants, on the other hand, such as Sir Humphrey, enjoy a substantial income and great power before retiring at a fixed age with a large index-linked pension. Any change would threaten the civil servants' easy life. This results in conflict between politicians and civil servants. For example, Sir Humphrey often mentions that a civil servant's success can be measured by the number of people who work for him: he will, therefore, try to block any change that will reduce the size of the civil service, or the complexity of its bureaucracy. Hacker, who knows that to do so would be a vote-winner, is desperate to do just that — or to at least look as if he has.

Sir Humphrey Appleby, Bernard Woolley and Jim Hacker in the Minister's Office at the Department of Administrative Affairs

The first series featured Frank Weisel (pron. W-"eye"-sel), played by Neil Fitzwiliam (Sir Humphrey and Bernard persistently call him "Mr Weasel"), Hacker's political adviser. Weisel does not appear in subsequent episodes following his convenient acceptance of a position on a quango (Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental Organisation) investigating the appointment of other quangos at the end of the first series. Following Sir Humphrey's promotion to Cabinet Secretary, Hacker becomes Prime Minister and appoints Bernard Woolley as his Principal Private Secretary in his new post. The first series of Yes, Prime Minister introduced Dorothy Wainwright (played by Deborah Norton) as a highly able Special Political Adviser to the Prime Minister, wise to many civil service tricks, which ensures a lasting mutual distrust between her and Sir Humphrey.

Hacker's home life is shown occasionally throughout the series. His wife, Annie (Diana Hoddinott), is clearly frustrated by the disruptions caused by her husband's political career and is somewhat sarcastic about her husband's politics. Meanwhile, his sociology student daughter, Lucy (Gerry Cowper), becomes an environmental activist in one episode (her only on-screen appearance, despite several other mentions), campaigning against one of her father's department's policies.

Much of the show's humour derives from the antagonism between Cabinet ministers (who believe they are in charge) and the members of the British Civil Service who are really running the country. A typical episode deals with Jim Hacker wanting to act on a pressing political issue, only to find Sir Humphrey blocking and stalling his efforts in order to maintain the status quo. More often than not, Sir Humphrey prevents Hacker from achieving anything, but often lets him think that he has scored a political victory, sometimes helping Hacker to garner positive publicity. However, Hacker occasionally gains the upper hand — as in "The Greasy Pole" (one of the few times when, of the two of them, Sir Humphrey is clearly the one with right on his side).

Sir Humphrey's personal characteristics include his complicated sentences, his cynical views on government, and his general toffiness. Hacker's features include occasional indecisiveness, and a tendency to launch into ludicrous Churchillian speeches. Bernard is apt to linguistic pedantry. Sir Humphrey often discusses matters with other Permanent Secretaries, who appear similarly sardonic and jaded, and the Cabinet Secretary (whom he will eventually succeed in Yes, Prime Minister), Sir Arnold Robinson — played by John Nettleton — an archetype of cynicism, haughtiness and conspiratorial expertise. This fairly counter-intuitive view of government administration is not only Sir Humphrey's: it is completely taken for granted by the civil service.

The Yes, Prime Minister episode "The Bishop's Gambit" parodied liberal theology and politics in the Anglican church. Hacker naturally thought that the church was a Christian institution, but Sir Humphrey gleefully informed him that most of the bishops do not believe in God, and that a theologian's job is partly to explain why an agnostic or atheist can be a church leader.

Almost all the episodes end with one of the characters (usually Sir Humphrey) saying "Yes, Minister" or "Yes, Prime Minister" accordingly. Each episode of the former series was more or less self-contained, but the latter exhibited what could be loosely described as a "story arc".

Critical reception

Yes Minister won the BAFTA award for Best Comedy Series for 1980, 1981 and 1982, and the "Party Games" special was nominated in the Best Light Entertainment Programme category for 1984. Yes, Prime Minister was shortlisted for Best Comedy Series for both 1986 and 1987.

Nigel Hawthorne's portrayal of Sir Humphrey Appleby won the BAFTA Award for Best Light Entertainment Performance four times: in the awards for 1981, 1982, 1986 and 1987. Eddington was also nominated on all four occasions. [2]

Yes Minister came sixth in a 2004 BBC poll to find 'Britain's Best Sitcom'.[3] In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted by industry professionals, Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister were jointly placed ninth.

The series have been cited by political scientists for their accurate and sophisticated portrayal of the relationships between civil servants and politicians.[4] The shows were very popular in government circles, and they were the favourite programme of then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. With the help of Bernard Ingham, Thatcher wrote a four-minute sketch which she performed with the show's two principal actors[5] (with their reluctant acquiescence).[6] The sketch was performed on 20 January 1984 at a ceremony where the writers were presented with an award from Mary Whitehouse's NVLA.[7] Accepting the award, Lynn thanked Thatcher "for taking her rightful place in the field of situation comedy." Everyone, except the Prime Minister, laughed.[8] Another ten-minute sketch was performed as part of a Christmas Special in 1982.

Background

The writers placed Hacker at the centre of the political spectrum, and were careful to identify his party headquarters as "Central House" (a combination of Conservative Central Office and Labour's Transport House). The terms 'Labour' and 'Conservative' are thoroughly avoided throughout the series, favouring terms such as "the party" and "the opposition". The series clearly intended to satirise politics and government in general, rather than any specific party, although the writers later said they considered Hacker a centrist Conservative.[citation needed] The one exception to this rule occurs very briefly in the penultimate episode, regarding education policy.

Despite this, the overall thrust of the early episodes was in a libertarian direction: casting government reduction in a more favourable light than government expansion. The episode "Jobs for the Boys" clearly rejected the tripartite form of corporatism that Mrs Thatcher's government was determined to pursue. Jay was personally sympathetic to the economically liberal elements of Thatcherism, and served as a part-time speech writer to Nigel Lawson. Lynn was, even initially, less sympathetic to Thatcher and as the decade progressed Thatcher's personality came to eclipse the policy agenda. This partnership produced episodes such as "Man Overboard", which satirised the Westland affair.

In Trollopian style, certain minor characters in the series were apparently drawn from identifiable real-world originals. The acerbic nationalised industry chairman, Sir Wally McFarland, was an affectionate caricature of Sir Monty Finniston (of British Steel); the Prime Minister's special advisor in Yes Minister, Sir Mark Spencer, was a reference to Derek Rayner who joined the first Thatcher Government from the chain store group Marks & Spencer; and the journalists John Pilgrim and Alex Andrews were evident references to John Pilger and Andrew Alexander. Billy Fraser, a tough uncompromising Scottish trade unionist, was based on Jamie Morris, who had led the strike at Westminster Hospital during the Winter of Discontent. By contrast, Hacker's Prime Ministerial special advisor, Dorothy Wainwright, predated the arrival of Sarah Hogg (who bore her some resemblance) as John Major's advisor some years later.

The pilot was produced in 1979 but not transmitted until 1980 in fear that it could influence the results of the 1979 UK General Election.[9]

Inspirations

In a programme screened by the BBC in early 2004, paying tribute to the series, it was revealed that Jay and Lynn had drawn on information provided by two insiders from the governments of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan, namely Marcia Williams and Bernard Donoughue. The name of Hacker's ministry was partly derived from the Department for Economic Affairs, which had existed in the 1960s, created and abolished by Wilson. The fundamental plot of a minister being frustrated by the Civil Service was inspired by the published diaries of Richard Crossman after 1964, which are dominated by Crossman's constant struggle with Dame Evelyn Sharp, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. The title was probably suggested by Crossman's entry for October 22, 1964, less than a week after he had been appointed:

"Already I realise the tremendous effort it requires not to be taken over by the Civil Service. My Minister's room is like a padded cell, and in certain ways I am like a person who is suddenly certified a lunatic and put safely into this great, vast room, cut off from real life and surrounded by male and female trained nurses and attendants. When I am in a good mood they occasionally allow an ordinary human being to come and visit me; but they make sure that I behave right, and that the other person behaves right; and they know how to handle me. Of course, they don't behave quite like nurses because the Civil Service is profoundly deferential — 'Yes, Minister! No, Minister! If you wish it, Minister!'"

Some of the material for the episodes is clearly derived from or based on part of Anthony Sampson's book Anatomy of Britain (Hodder and Stoughton, 1962). The episode entitled "The Moral Dimension", in which Hacker and his staff engage in the scheme of secretly consuming alcohol on a trade mission to the fictional Islamic state of Qumran, was revealed to have been based on a real incident that took place in Pakistan.[10] The reference in "A Diplomatic Incident" (Yes, Prime Minister) to opportunities for diplomacy at a "working funeral" (in light of his predecessor's death) may have been inspired by the discussions between Harold Wilson and Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith at the funeral of Winston Churchill, which came at a time when each was refusing to travel to see the other.

Episodes

Main article: List of Yes Minister and Yes, Prime Minister episodes

Thirty-eight episodes in total were made between 1980 to 1988, including an hour-long special, "Party Games".

Character list

Main characters

  • James "Jim" Hacker: Minister of Administrative Affairs; also Party Chair (in "Party Games"); then Prime Minister, played by Paul Eddington
  • Sir Humphrey Appleby: Permanent Secretary of the Department of Administrative Affairs; then Cabinet Secretary, played by Nigel Hawthorne
  • Bernard Woolley: Jim Hacker's Principal Private Secretary, played by Derek Fowlds

Other characters

  • Frank Weisel: Hacker's political advisor (in the first series of Yes Minister), played by Neil Fitzwiliam
  • Dorothy Wainwright: Special Advisor to the Prime Minister (in Yes, Prime Minister), played by Deborah Norton
  • Anne "Annie" Hacker: Hacker's wife, played by Diana Hoddinott
  • Lucy Hacker: Hacker's daughter (only seen in the Yes Minister episode "The Right to Know"), played by Gerry Cowper
  • Sir Arnold Robinson: Cabinet Secretary (in Yes Minister), later President of the Campaign for Freedom of Information, played by John Nettleton
  • Sir Desmond Glazebrook: Board member, then Chairman, of Bartlett's Bank; City of London banker and old friend of Sir Humphrey. Becomes Governor of the Bank of England (in the Yes, Prime Minister episode "A Conflict of Interest"), played by Richard Vernon
  • Sir Frank Gordon: Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, played by Peter Cellier
  • Sir Frederick Stewart: Permanent Secretary of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (known as "Jumbo" to his friends), played by John Savident
  • George: Hacker's driver in five episodes of Yes Minister, played by Arthur Cox

Opening titles and music

Gerald Scarfe's caricature of Paul Eddington as Hacker

The opening titles were drawn by artist Gerald Scarfe, who provided distinctive caricatures of Eddington, Hawthorne and Fowlds in their respective roles. He animated them as 'self-drawing' by positioning the camera above his paper, adding parts of lines, and then photographing two frames at a time. The sequence ended with the title of the episode superimposed on a blank 'government memo'. Derek Fowlds has stated that he wanted to buy an original drawing but was unable to afford it.[11]

The theme music was composed by Ronnie Hazlehurst and is largely based on the Westminster Quarters: the chimes of Big Ben. When asked in an interview about its Westminster influence, Hazlehurst replied, "That's all it is. It's the easiest thing I've ever done."[12]

However, Scarfe's work cannot be seen on the first episode, "Open Government". As it was a pilot, the final version of the titles and music had yet to be agreed, and both differ substantially to those used for all other instalments. The opening and closing title caption cards feature drawings of most the cast, but are much less exaggerated than those of Scarfe, while the uncredited music is a more up-tempo brass arrangement.

The series' performance credits typically did not feature the names of characters — only those of the actors who appeared in the particular episode.

Remakes

Radio

Sixteen episodes[13] of Yes Minister were adapted and re-recorded for broadcast by BBC Radio 4, with the principal cast reprising their roles. They were broadcast across two seasons in 1983 and 1984, each with eight episodes.[14] The complete set was released on cassette in February 2000, and on compact disc in October 2002.

In 1997, Derek Fowlds reprised the role of Bernard Woolley to read Antony Jay's How To Beat Sir Humphrey: Every Citizen's Guide To Fighting Officialdom. It was broadcast in three daily parts by Radio 4 from 29 September to 1 October 1997[14] and released by BBC Audiobooks on cassette in October 1997.

Merchandise

Video and DVD releases

File:Yes-Minister-DVD-1.jpg
Yes Minister
(Series One DVD cover)

The BBC issued some episodes of Yes Minister, and all of Yes Prime Minister on VHS.[15] They were rereleased and repackaged at various points.

The complete collection was released by BBC Warner on Region 1 DVD in October 2003. Warner appears to have added RCE to the individual release of the second series of Yes Minister, but there are no similar reported problems on playing the complete collection.[15]

The BBC, through 2 Entertain Video, have issued several Region 2 DVDs:

  • Yes Minister: Series One (BBCDVD1047), released 1 October 2001
  • Yes Minister: Series Two (BBCDVD1120), released 30 September 2002
  • Yes Minister: Series Three & "Party Games" (BBCDVD1188), released 29 September 2003
  • The Complete Yes Minister (BBCDVD1462), released 15 November 2004
  • Yes, Prime Minister: Series One (BBCDVD1365), released 4 October 2004
  • Yes, Prime Minister: Series Two (BBCDVD1729), released 9 May 2005
  • The Complete Yes Minister & Yes, Prime Minister, scheduled for release 16 October 2006

Books

File:Compym.jpg
Original hardback cover of The Complete Yes Minister (1984)

Several books have been published surrounding the series. The scripts were edited and transformed into prose, and published by BBC Books in the form of diaries. Scenes that did not involve Hacker took the form of private memos between civil servants.

The three series of Yes Minister were published as paperbacks in 1981, 1982 and 1983 respectively before being combined into a revised hardback omnibus edition, The Complete Yes Minister: The Diaries of a Cabinet Minister, in 1984.

Yes, Prime Minister: The Diaries of the Right Hon. James Hacker were published as two volumes in 1986 and 1987 respectively, before also receiving an omnibus edition in 1988.

Both series were published as omnibus paperback editions in 1989:

  • The Complete Yes Minister ISBN 0563206659
  • The Complete Yes, Prime Minister ISBN 0563207736

Antony Jay's How to Beat Sir Humphrey: Every Citizen's Guide to Fighting Officialdom was published in April 1997. It was illustrated by Gerald Scarfe and Shaun Williams. It was read by Derek Fowlds on Radio 4 later that year.

Trivia

  • During the premierships of Margaret Thatcher and John Major, the resident cat of 10 Downing Street was called Humphrey after the character in the TV series. Humphrey "retired" in 1997, rumoured to be because Cherie Blair dislikes cats, and died in the care of a civil servant on 19 March 2006.[16]
  • When Paul Eddington visited Australia during the 1980s, he was treated as a visiting British PM by the then Australian leader, Bob Hawke, who was obviously a great fan of the show. At a rally, Hawke said "You don't want to be listening to me; you want to be listening to the real Prime Minister," forcing Eddington to improvise. [17]
  • Running jokes on the show are to poke fun at the low listenership of BBC Radio 3 and weakness of the British Pound.
  • A computer game version of Yes Minister was released in 1987 for the Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and ZX Spectrum. The premise was to survive one week in office as Jim Hacker. [18]

See also

References

  1. ^ Cockerell, Michael (1988). Live From Number 10: The Inside Story of Prime Ministers and Television. London: Faber and Faber. p. 288. ISBN 0-571-14757-7.
  2. ^ "Awards for "Yes Minister"". IMDb.com. Retrieved 2006-09-01. {{cite web}}: line feed character in |title= at position 12 (help)
  3. ^ "Britain's Best Sitcom: The Final Top 10 Sitcoms". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2006-08-30.
  4. ^ "Fiftieth Anniversary Award Winners" (PDF). The Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom. Retrieved 2006-08-30.
  5. ^ Cockerell, Michael (1988). Live From Number 10: The Inside Story of Prime Ministers and Television. London: Faber and Faber. p. 288. ISBN 0-571-14757-7. The phrase "with the help of Bernard Ingham" is a quotation Cockerell's this book. Other sources give Thatcher sole credit; some give equal credit between the two.
  6. ^ Nigel Hawthorne and Jonathan Lynn, interview on Prod. Paul Tilzey (August 2006). "Modern Times". Laughter in the House. BBC. BBC Two. Hawthorne says he and Eddington resented Thatcher's attempts to "make capital" from their popularity. They asked Lynn to "get them out" of it, but the writer was not in a position to help.
  7. ^ Stringer, Robin (January 21 1984). "Thatcher stars in "Yes, Minister"" (Reprint on website). Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2006-08-30. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  8. ^ Jonathan Lynn, interview on Prod. Paul Tilzey (August 2006). "Modern Times". Laughter in the House. BBC. BBC Two.
  9. ^ "Yes Minister". Britain's Best Sitcom. 2004. BBC. BBC Two.
  10. ^ Antony Jay says that "I can't tell you where, I can't tell you when and I can't tell you who was involved; all I can tell you is that we knew that it had actually happened. That's why it was so funny. We couldn't think up things as funny as the real things that had happened." Prod. Paul Tilzey (August 2006). "Modern Times". Laughter in the House. BBC. BBC Two.
  11. ^ "Yes Minister". Britain's Best Sitcom. 2004. BBC. BBC Two.
  12. ^ "BBC New Talent: Advice for new TV composers". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2006-09-02.
  13. ^ Episodes included "Open Government", "Big Brother", "The Economy Drive", "The Writing on the Wall", "The Smoke Screen", "The Ministerial Broadcast", "Official Secrets" and "A Conflict of Interest", "The Quality of Life", (vol3:) "The Compassionate Society", "The Greasy Pole", "The Skeleton in the Cupboard", "A Question of Loyalty" (vol4:) "The Whisky Priest", "The Death List" and "The Moral Dimension"
  14. ^ a b Lewisohn, Mark. "Yes Minister". BBC Comedy Guide. Retrieved 2006-08-31.
  15. ^ a b "video/dvd". The Yes (Prime) Minister Files. Retrieved 2006-08-31.
  16. ^ "Downing Street cat Humphrey dies". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2006-08-30.
  17. ^ "Hacker in Australia: footage of Paul Eddington visiting Australia". yes-minister.com. Retrieved 2006-09-02.
  18. ^ Scott, Steve. "Yes, Prime Minister". lemon64.com. Retrieved 2006-08-30.
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