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Yes Minister

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Television

                     Yes Minister /
   Yes, Prime Minister
             The title card of Yes Minister
         Genre       Comedy
     Camera setup    Multi-camera
     Running time    30 minutes
      Creator(s)     Antony Jay
                     Jonathan Lynn
       Starring      Paul Eddington
                     Nigel Hawthorne
                     Derek Fowlds
     Opening theme   Ronnie Hazlehurst
   Country of origin United Kingdom
   Original channel  BBC Two
     Original run    25 February 1980– 28 January 1988
    No. of episodes  39

   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.

Plot

   Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

   The dominant running theme is the struggle between ( The Rt Hon.) James
   "Jim" Hacker, the newly-appointed Minister in the (fictional)
   Department of Administrative Affairs, and his civil servants and
   ministerial colleagues. Chief among his officials are Sir Humphrey
   Appleby, KCB, MVO, MA (Oxon), who is the department's Permanent
   Secretary, and Bernard Woolley, Hacker's Principal Private Secretary.

   The different ideals and self-interested motivations of the characters
   are frequently contrasted. Whilst Hacker occasionally approaches an
   issue from a sense of idealism and a desire to be seen to improve
   things for the better, he ultimately sees his re-election as the only
   endorsement of his success. In order to achieve this he must appear to
   the voters as effective, and responsive to the public will. Sir
   Humphrey, on the other hand, genuinely believes (along with most of the
   other civil servants who are depicted) that it is the Civil Service who
   know what is best for the country, which usually translates into being
   what is best for the Civil Service. Most of his actions are motivated
   by his wish to maintain the power and influence he enjoys inside a
   large, bureaucratic organisation, and also to preserve the numerous
   perks of his position (including automatic honours, a substantial
   income, a fixed retirement age and a large index-linked pension), and
   the practical impossibility of a civil servant being made redundant or
   sacked for incompetence. It is the politicians who potentially lose
   their jobs because of civil service ineptitude, and this is another
   source of tension between Hacker and Appleby.

   Hacker, then, sees his task as the initiation of reforms and economies
   in the department, a reduction of the level of bureaucracy and staff
   numbers in the Civil Service, and the government of the country
   according to his party's policies. To do so — or to at least look as if
   he has — would be a vote-winner. Conversely, Sir Humphrey sees his role
   as ensuring that politics is kept out of government as much as
   possible, and that the status quo is upheld as a matter of principle.
   He will block any move that seeks either to prevent the further
   expansion of the civil service or to reduce the complexity of its
   bureaucracy.

   Much of the show's humour thus derives from the antagonism between
   Cabinet ministers (who believe they are in charge) and the members of
   the British Civil Service who really run the country. A typical episode
   centres on Jim Hacker's suggesting and pursuing a reform, and Sir
   Humphrey's ingenious blocking of all Hacker's lines of approach. More
   often than not Sir Humphrey prevents him from achieving his goal, while
   mollifying Hacker with some positive publicity, or at least a means to
   cover up his failure. However, Hacker occasionally gets his way — 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).

   Initially Woolley naively sees his job as the disinterested
   implementation of the Minister's policies, but he gradually finds that
   this conflicts with his institutional duty to the department and
   sometimes, since Sir Humphrey is responsible for formally assessing
   Woolley's performance, his own potential career development.

   The first series featured Frank Weisel, Hacker's political advisor,
   played by Neil Fitzwiliam. While his name is pronounced W-"eye"-sel,
   Sir Humphrey and Bernard persistently call him "Mr Weasel". Weisel does
   not appear after the first series, following his convenient acceptance
   of a position on a quango (Quasi-Autonomous Non-Governmental
   Organisation) tasked with investigating the appointment of other
   quangos. After the third series, following Sir Humphrey's promotion to
   Cabinet Secretary, Hacker becomes Prime Minister and requests that
   Bernard Woolley continue as his Principal Private Secretary. The first
   series of Yes, Prime Minister introduced Dorothy Wainwright (played by
   Deborah Norton) as a highly able Special Political Advisor to the Prime
   Minister. Her insight into many civil service tricks 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 at times
   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.

   Sir Humphrey's personal characteristics include his complicated
   sentences, his cynical views on government, and his superciliousness.
   Hacker's attributes 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 thought that the
   church is 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". Each episode
   of the former series was more or less self-contained, but Yes, Prime
   Minister had a loose 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 National Education
   Service", when Sir Humphrey explains to Bernard how the policy of
   comprehensive education is retained through successive governments,
   using different arguments according to which party is in power.

   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", for example, rejected corporatism. 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.

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. 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 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, 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 chaffeur, George ( Arthur Cox), appeared in five episodes. He
   is a character who is always more in touch with current events than the
   Minister. This often irritates Hacker, who when asking George where he
   got the information, is usually told that it is common knowledge among
   the Whitehall drivers.

   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".

   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 wanted to buy an original drawing
   but was unable to afford it.

   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."

   Scarfe's and Hazlehurst's work was not used for the first episode, "
   Open Government". The final version of the titles and music had yet to
   be agreed, and both differ substantially from those used for subsequent
   instalments. The opening and closing title caption cards feature
   drawings of most of the cast, but are less exaggerated than those of
   Scarfe, while the uncredited music is a more up-tempo piece for brass
   band. The Scarfe and Hazelhurst credits were used for some repeat
   broadcasts of the first episode, but the original pilot credits were
   retained for the DVD release.

   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.

   Yes Minister came sixth in a 2004 BBC poll to find ' Britain's Best
   Sitcom'. 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. 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.

   With the help of Bernard Ingham, Thatcher wrote a four-minute sketch
   which she performed with the show's two principal actors (with their
   reluctant acquiescence). The sketch was performed on 20 January 1984 at
   a ceremony where the writers were presented with an award from Mary
   Whitehouse's NVLA. Accepting the award, Lynn thanked Thatcher "for
   taking her rightful place in the field of situation comedy." Everyone,
   except the Prime Minister, laughed.

   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.

   In an interview to promote the first series of Yes, Prime Minister,
   Derek Fowlds offered this reason for the series' popularity with both
   politicians and Whitehall officials:

     "Both political sides believe that it satirises their opponents, and
     civil servants love it because it depicts them as being more
     powerful than either. And of course, they love it because it's all
     so authentic."

Legacy

Remakes

   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.

Influence

   There have been several comedies and dramas with similar themes. House
   of Cards was a mini-series first broadcast in 1990, about the
   Machiavellian struggle of Chief Whip Francis Urquhart to become Prime
   Minister. His story was later continued in To Play the King in 1993 and
   The Final Cut in 1995.

   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.

   In 2005, BBC Four launched The Thick of It. Director Armando Iannucci
   described it as "Yes Minister meets Larry Sanders", and The Telegraph
   called it "a Yes, Minister for the New Labour years."

Radio

   Sixteen episodes 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. 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 and released by BBC Audiobooks on
   cassette in October 1997.

Merchandise

Video and DVD releases

   The BBC issued some episodes of Yes Minister, and all of Yes Prime
   Minister on VHS. 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.

   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, released 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.

   Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yes_Minister"
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   with only minor checks and changes (see www.wikipedia.org for details
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