Yes Minister
| Yes Minister | |
|---|---|
 The title card of Yes Minister | |
| Created by | Antony Jay Jonathan Lynn |
| Starring | Paul Eddington Nigel Hawthorne Derek Fowlds |
| Opening theme | Ronnie Hazlehurst |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| No. of episodes | 39 |
| Production | |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | BBC Two |
| Release | 25 February 1980 – 28 January 1988 |
Yes Minister is a satirical British sitcom that was first transmitted by BBC television and radio between 1980 and 1984. It was followed by a sequel, Yes, Prime Minister, which ran from 1986 to 1988. Both series comprise a total of 38 episodes, 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 follows 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 ends with the eponymous line, "Yes, Minister" (or "Yes, Prime Minister").
A critical and popular success, the series was the 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.
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".
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. 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, and Ben Stanley was a reference to the controversial former leader of the GLC, Ken Livingstone. 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.[2]
Inspirations
In a programme screened by the BBC in early 2004, paying tribute to the series,[2] 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.[3] 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
A total of thirty-eight episodes were made: all are of 30 minutes' duration except one. As was standard BBC practice for situation comedies at the time, they were videotaped in front of a studio audience with film inserts of any location sequences. Some shots of Hacker travelling in his car were achieved by means of chroma key. Each instalment usually comprised around six scenes.
Yes Minister ran for for three series, each of seven episodes, between 1980 and 1982. These were followed by two Christmas specials: one 10-minute sketch as part of an anthology presented by Frank Muir,[4] and then the hour-long "Party Games", in 1984. The latter's events led to Hacker's elevation to Prime Minister, dovetailing into the sequel, Yes, Prime Minister. This ran for two series, each of eight episodes, from 1986 to 1988.
In a Radio Times interview to promote the second series of Yes, Prime Minister, the producer, Sydney Lotterby, stated that he always tried to give Eddington and Hawthorne extra time to rehearse as their scenes invariably featured lengthy dialogue exchanges.
Other characters
The series featured a cast of recurring characters. Frank Weisel, played by Neil Fitzwiliam, was Hacker's political advisor in the first series. It wasn't until Yes, Prime Minister that another such character appeared regularly: Dorothy Wainwright, special advisor to the Prime Minister, who was played by Deborah Norton. Hacker also had a Press Secretary, Bill Pritchard, played by Antony Carrick. Meanwhile, Sir Humphrey's civil service colleagues were regularly featured. They included Sir Arnold Robinson (played by John Nettleton), Cabinet Secretary in Yes Minister and later President of the Campaign for Freedom of Information; Sir Frederick Stewart (played by John Savident), Permanent Secretary of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, who is known as "Jumbo" to his friends; and Sir Frank Gordon (played by Peter Cellier), Permanent Secretary to the Treasury, who appeared in both series. Sir Humphrey also had an old acquaintance: Sir Desmond Glazebrook (played by Richard Vernon), who was Board member, then Chairman, of Bartlett's Bank. He became Governor of the Bank of England in the Yes, Prime Minister episode "A Conflict of Interest".
Hacker's family comprised his wife, Annie (played by Diana Hoddinott), who appeared in many episodes, and his daughter, Lucy (played by Gerry Cowper), who only featured on-screen in one: "The Right to Know". His ministerial driver was George (played by Arthur Cox), who appeared in five episodes of Yes Minister.
Well known broadcasters who played themselves included Robert McKenzie, Ludovic Kennedy and Sue Lawley. The late Robert Dougall regularly played a newsreader — his own real life profession.
Opening titles and music
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'. Scarfe created a second set of graphics for Yes, Prime Minister, featuring different artwork for each episode title card. Derek Fowlds has stated that he wanted to buy an original drawing but was unable to afford it.[5]
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."[6]
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.
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. [7]
Yes Minister came sixth in a 2004 BBC poll to find 'Britain's Best Sitcom'.[8] 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.[9] The shows were very popular in government circles, and they were the favourite programme of then Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Indeed, during her premiership, and of John Major's, the resident cat of 10 Downing Street was called Humphrey after Hawthorne's character. [10]
With the help of Bernard Ingham, Thatcher wrote a four-minute sketch which she performed with the show's two principal actors[1][11] (with their reluctant acquiescence).[12] The sketch was performed on 20 January 1984 at a ceremony where the writers were presented with an award from Mary Whitehouse's NVLA.[13] Accepting the award, Lynn thanked Thatcher "for taking her rightful place in the field of situation comedy." Everyone, except the Prime Minister, laughed.[14]
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.[15]
Remakes and legacy
The show has been remade several times. The first was the Canadian remake in 1987 Not My Department, which only lasted one season. Rosenbaddarna (from 1990) was the Swedish unofficial remake. The title of the Portuguese remake, Sim, Sr. Ministro (from 1996), could cause confusion when shown alongside the British version since it was also the direct translation of the original's title. Ji, Mantriji (2001) was the official remake in Hindi (with the BBC's permission) by Star Plus, Rupert Murdoch's Indian satellite TV channel.
After Yes, Prime Minister ended in 1988, there have been several comedies and dramas with similar themes. House of Cards was a political drama mini-series about the Machiavellian struggle of Chief Whip Francis Urquhart in becoming the next British Prime Minister. His story was later continued in To Play the King and The Final Cut.
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. [16]
In 2005, BBC Four launched The Thick of It. Director Armando Iannucci described it as "Yes Minister meets Larry Sanders",[17] and The Telegraph called it "a Yes, Minister for the New Labour years."[18]
Radio
Sixteen episodes[19] 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, each with eight episodes. The first series aired 18 October to 7 December 1983, with the second originally transmitted 8 October to 27 November 1984.[20] 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[20] and released by BBC Audiobooks on cassette in October 1997.
Merchandise
(Series One DVD cover)
Video and DVD releases
The BBC issued some episodes of Yes Minister, and all of Yes Prime Minister on VHS.[21] 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.[21]
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
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, or 'interviews' and written correspondence from other characters.
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.
See also
References
- ^ a b 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.
- ^ a b "Yes Minister". Britain's Best Sitcom. 2004. BBC. BBC Two.
- ^ 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.
- ^ "YES, MINISTER and YES, PRIME MINISTER". The British Comedy and Drama Website. Retrieved 2006-09-20.
- ^ "Yes Minister". Britain's Best Sitcom. 2004. BBC. BBC Two.
- ^ "BBC New Talent: Advice for new TV composers". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2006-09-02.
- ^ "Awards for "Yes Minister"". IMDb.com. Retrieved 2006-09-01.
{{cite web}}: line feed character in|title=at position 12 (help) - ^ "Britain's Best Sitcom: The Final Top 10 Sitcoms". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2006-08-30.
- ^ "Fiftieth Anniversary Award Winners" (PDF). The Political Studies Association of the United Kingdom. Retrieved 2006-08-30.
- ^ 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. "Downing Street cat Humphrey dies". bbc.co.uk. Retrieved 2006-08-30.
- ^ The phrase "with the help of Bernard Ingham" is a quotation from Cockerell's book. Other sources give Thatcher sole credit; some give equal credit between the two.
- ^ Nigel Hawthorne and Jonathan Lynn discuss this in interviews featured on Prod. Paul Tilzey; Dir. Gabrielle Osrin (09 April 1999). "Part 3: Modern Times". Omnibus: Laughter in the House. BBC.
{{cite episode}}: Check date values in:|airdate=(help) (repeated 19 August 2006) [1] 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. - ^ 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) - ^ Jonathan Lynn, interview on Prod. Paul Tilzey; Dir. Gabrielle Osrin (09 April 1999). "Part 3: Modern Times". Omnibus: Laughter in the House. BBC.
{{cite episode}}: Check date values in:|airdate=(help) (repeated 19 August 2006) [2] - ^ "Hacker in Australia: footage of Paul Eddington visiting Australia". yes-minister.com. Retrieved 2006-09-02.
- ^ Scott, Steve. "Yes, Prime Minister". lemon64.com. Retrieved 2006-08-30.
- ^ "The Thick of It: Interview: Armando Iannucci, Chris Langham & Peter Capaldi". Retrieved 2006-09-07.
- ^ Sylvester, Rachel (April 30 2005). "New TV satire puts Labour in the thick of it" (Reprint on telegraph.co.uk). Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2006-09-07.
{{cite news}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ 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"
- ^ a b Lewisohn, Mark. "Yes Minister". BBC Comedy Guide. Retrieved 2006-08-31.
- ^ a b "video/dvd". The Yes (Prime) Minister Files. Retrieved 2006-08-31.
External links
- Yes Minister at the BBC Guide to Comedy
- Yes Minister at IMDb
- Yes, Prime Minister at IMDb
- Yes Minister at the British Film Institute Screen Online
- Yes Minister at the Encyclopedia of Television
- Yes Minister at the British sitcom guide
- Yes, Minister / Yes, Prime Minister fan page
- Another guide to all the episodes