Comedy Connections: Yes Minister 1

good morning minister have sorry do you see it as part of your job to help me just just make fools of themselves well I've never met one that needed any help Yes Minister and its sequel Yes Prime Minister poked the finger of fun at government over five series it charted the rise to power of the nation's most unlikely prime minister the right honourable Jim hacker I've been Prime Minister for let me see three days now and a very good PM you are not fishing for compliments that has been going rather well British politics took a surprise turn when hacker was appointed to number 10 despite well-founded doubts about his abilities hacker saw himself as a popular man of the people hacker was a journalist and before that lecturer at LSE so he'd never run anything at all after the landslide election victory of 1980 hacker had been made the Minister for administrative affairs his bulging portfolio included quangos fallout shelters badger colonies and the euro sausage what do we tell our me from Becca sterling of bacon I don't and I will his relationship with the media was never easy and gave him many awkward moments you know I'm glad you asked me that friend Jim was desperate not to let himself down in front of the cameras or in for the presence of journalists during his career hackers main political relationships were with civil servants Bernhard Woolley the very model of professional impartiality on both sides of centre with slight leanings to the right and the left and sir Humphrey Appleby who fixed it for Jim as both minister and Prime Minister ministers and their civil servants so often covered up and defend where they should seek out and destroy if hacker was an unlikely p.m. Yes Minister pulled off an even bigger trick turning the stuffed suits of Whitehall into comedy heroes and what about ministers ministers of course have a whole range of dazzling qualities Tooting but viewers might never have been given this glimpse down the corridors of power if writer Anthony J had got the job he'd set his heart on I was actually really that interested in politics when I started I was really interested in sport and I joined the outside broadcast department to start with hoping to be a great cricket commentator cricket commentaries were out but current affairs were in and Jay joined the BBC's tonight program which took a helpfully irreverent view of the state of the nation then Jay moved on to satirizing politics in that was the week that was where he struck up a friendship with David Frost we had this idea together for the frost report which was comedy sketches about aspects of British life like holidays and leisure and politics one of the people he recruited was John Cleese and um and I got to know John we got on fine let him who is without sin cast the first stone sensing the commercial potential of comedy Jay and Cleese went into business together calling their company video arts and specializing in funny training films soldiers please and Jay wrote the scripts but they also needed other actors John Cleese called on his old friend Jonathan Lynn I've actually gone wrong what's actually no no ha I was very sympathetic poor old Johnnie's committed himself for this mad idea I'll do what I can to help out first time I met Johnny was when he acted in our very first film which was how service engineers managed to lose business while they're repairing equipment even using this area all trailing films had been really boring hitherto because they show people how to do a job right and Tony realized that the way to make them entertaining was to show how to do it wrong like please Jonathan Lynn was a graduate of Cambridge University's footlights Club and they appeared on Broadway together in the comedy revue Cambridge circus back in Britain Lynne appeared onstage in Fiddler on the Roof and played small parts in TV sitcoms like the live--i birds but it wasn't until some Cambridge friends now goodies started writing for another sitcom that Lynn's career really took off Bell Rd and Graham garden wrote apart in doctrine the house called Danny Huli in the second series of doctor in the house and I think they wrote it with me in mind I never did trust you Upton you're shifty everybody says so right well I do one week somebody didn't deliver a script in time and George Leighton who had become friends with so why don't we have a goat writing an episode it's me Paul Collier so they did and we had beginner's luck and after that such as the dearth of people who can deliver a funny half-hour we were sort of swamped with offers dozens of scripts for the doctor series and on the buses established Lyn as a comedy writer so when Cleese went off to write Fawlty Towers Lynn was invited to take over scripting duties at video arts we started writing comedy training films together we got on fine it was a very happy successful partnership impressed with Johnny's talent Tony Jay thought he'd sound him out about a different type of comedy Tony said to me I thought of doing a situation comedy about the corridors of power about what happens in government about the civil service when I first mentioned the Yes Minister idea Johnny he was sort of coolish about it I thought that was really the most boring suggestion that would come my way for a long time so I said no thanks Lynn might have blocked the start of hackers career but Tony wasn't discouraged suspecting politics could be a comedy goldmine for someone prepared to dig I think I've first got the idea of a Yes Minister working with politicians and seeing how actually the whole thing that people saw on the screen was a bad 1/4 of the real story and that all the work of government was done behind the scenes by press officers and private secretaries and permanent secretaries and the people who all knew how it were and then I thought you know this is exactly the same as Steptoe and son you've got young Steptoe got these ones Oh dad we could hear the man's wonderful you know we could her and then and with all the aspirations and his father who really knows a minister now I where card you there having spent two years directing plays Johnny Lynn was now ready to write again fan Toni and said you ever that idea and he said yes nice are you interested now I said I don't know I might be he said well let's meet and talk about it so we did and we thought well we'll research it see if we can work out how to do this show was there anything funny about Whitehall plenty Marcia Williams Harold Wilson's former private secretary and Bernard Donohue head of number Ten's political unit were prepared to speak off the record we never mentioned each to the other because they disliked each other quite a lot we normally but not always met for a nice fish lunch but we would discuss then at the meeting thoughts and ideas we've read everything you could read but what we were really about was the things you wouldn't read people wouldn't write but would tell us over lunch I had never revealed that I helped yes minister nobody knew me it was a kind of secret private pleasure the indiscretions over lunch convinced Lind that there was a rich source of comedy at the heart of government the show in the characters were taking shape you discovered we were able to nail it down to actually three characters who would enable us to preserve the dramatic truth of the situation to bring the first script to life one character needed to embody the whole civil service ethos Sir Humphrey was in my view of creation or absolute genius personifying the aspects of behavior at the top in Whitehall I thought of someone who'd been terribly good in a video arts training film that was Nigel Hawthorne Nigel Hawthorne was a respected stage actor who had recently won plaudits for his appear in privates on parade his ability to play both dominance and deference made him perfect for sir Humphrey Appleby the department's permanent secretary he sees himself as a defender of the nation's interests against these people who come and go and never see anything through because they're never in the same job for more than about 18 months anyway in spite of Sir Humphrey the post of Minister had to be filled BBC's head of comedy John Howard Davis had chosen his candidate and wouldn't take no for an answer I never thought of anybody else but Paul to play the minister uniquely he was absolutely perfect for it and I hadn't got a second choice Paul Eddington had appeared in TVs Adventures of Robin Hood and cat weasel before becoming a favorite as the long-suffering neighbor Gerry in the good life you've torn my financial times I am very very sorry I do realize that's the eighth deadly sin but my fruit is suffering well give it an aspirin by 1978 the job of Jim hacker was his for the taking I think we'd always seen the relationship between Jim and Humphrey as being the heart of the comedy and I think nearly all the really funny scenes are when the two of them are together but you had to have scenes of them apart because you had to tell the audience what Jim was planning the he didn't want Humphrey to know Humphrey was planning he didn't want Jim to know and so that was where Bernard came in he was the pig in the middle he was confided in by both of them trying to be loyal to both of them and it made his part of very funny one a great satisfactory one to ride the future Bernard however wasn't waiting for the phone to ring hello yes sir hello this is the Fulton brush Detective Agency at your service the Foreign Office Oh Oh certainly mr. minister oh yes mr. Minister we will expect you in half an hour inter thank you very much I thank you I goodbye I'd seen Derek on television with my kid we were watching him as with basil brush I suddenly thought this might be the man Willie basil and I really gel together we did eight series and to Royal Command performances and when I left because I have to go and act I really missed him he became my best friend after spending the early 70s hanging out with basil and popping up in shows like the live Birds Derek Folds was ready to take the civil service challenge all the elements seemed to be in place for a successful political sitcom when he went to pilot we didn't get a series guaranteed on it but we wrote a decent treatment and we shared where the fun was and we showed who the characters were and the sort of stories that you could write and the sort of situations that would develop and I'm really that was enough but unfortunately when I presented it to Paul Eddington for him to play the minister he turned it down he didn't like it it never works not very funny politics are not funny they're horrible people you really are a pain in the arse anshel I'm a bully so I eventually managed to persuade him to the pilot with Paul Eddington onboard however unwillingly the rest of the team were recruited including Diana Hoda not as Jim skeptical but supportive wife Annie John nettleton is the all-powerful cabinet secretary Sir Arnold an Antony Carrick as hackers press officer everyone was anxious that the pilot would leave a good impression a pilot is always done under extreme nervous tension no two ways about you frightened to death I met Paul he was a wonderful and Nigel and we'd said hello we started and I got these little glasses and I put them on and I and I started to talk bit like that you know Helia and Paul and I were in the taxi rehearsing and he said he said what he said why are you talking funny that's it only I can ace Verne as you know there's PPS I even when I do something rather I get this is why he said why he got those glasses on I said so character stuff surfer guy said take the glasses off just you I say I have how to do that is she just be you

Channel: Humphrey Appleby

Views: 144,811

Rating: 4.8045802 out of 5

Keywords: Comedy, Connections, Yes, Minister

Id: Ir8hAnpDdco

Length: 13min 16sec (796 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 27 2010