TotalTelly.co.uk

Devoted to Popular, Cult and Retro TV

Yes Minister & Yes Prime Minister: Complete BBC Box Set


RRP: £49.99
Our Price: £26.97 (subject to change)

Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review

Yes Minister series 1:
The first series of the elegant sitcom-cum-farce-cum-sophisticated political satire Yes Minister, sets off Paul Eddington's Jim Hacker, Minister for Administrative Affairs, against Nigel Hawthorne's discreetly obstructive civil servant Sir Humphrey. It features the pilot episode, 'Open Government', curious in that it contains different and distinctly inferior opening and closing credits to the rest of the series. You also sense that Mrs Hacker was originally intended to have a larger role, with comedy focussing on the clash between political and domestic commitments, until the writers wisely decided to focus on the stand-off between Jim and Sir Humphrey, with Derek Fowlds' mousy private secretary Bernard making occasional interjections. While Sir Humphrey is at times a little too sinister for sitcom consumption, all the classic features quickly show up. Hacker's occasional Churchillian bombast, followed by panicky blank double-takes when flummoxed, Sir Humphrey's unflappable verbosity as he brings the dead weight of civil service bureaucracy to bear against Hacker's naively optimistic schemes for open government, Quangos and slashing red tape in episodes like 'The Economy Drive'. Ironic, that when this was first screened in the 80s, it was during the rampages of early Thatcherism in which Government had never been less like the ineffectual politicking satirised here. --David Stubbs

Yes Prime Minister series 2:
Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn's superb sitcom Yes Prime Minister entered 10 Downing Street with Jim Hacker now Prime Minister of Britain, following a campaign to 'Save the British Sausage'. Whether tackling defence ('The Grand Design'), local government ('Power to the People') or the National Education Service, all of Jim Hacker's bold plans for reform generally come to nothing, thanks to the machinations of Nigel Hawthorne's complacent Cabinet Secretary Sir Humphrey (Jeeves to Hacker's Wooster) who opposes any action of any sort on the part of the PM altogether. This is usually achieved by discreet horse-trading. In 'One of Us', for instance, Hacker relents from implementing defence cuts when he is presented with the embarrassingly large bill he ran up in a vote-catching mission to rescue a stray dog on an army firing range. Only in 'The Tangled Web', the final episode of Series 2, does the PM at last turn the tables on Sir Humphrey. Paul Eddington is a joy as Hacker, whether in mock-Churchillian mode or visibly cowering whenever he is congratulated on a "courageous" idea. Jay and Lynn's script, meanwhile, is a dazzlingly Byzantine exercise in wordplay, wittily reflecting the verbiage-to-substance ratio of politics. Ironically, Yes Prime Minister is an accurate depiction of practically all political eras except its own, the 1980s, when Thatcher successfully carried out a radical programme regardless of harrumphing senior civil servants. --David Stubbs

DVD Description
This complete collection includes every episode of the hugely popular political satire Yes Minister series 1 – 3 (which first aired in 1980 on BBC 2) along with each episode in the subsequent two series of Yes Prime Minister (which aired from 1986).

Meet the bewildered Rt Hon James Hacker, his scheming and equivocating Permanent Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby and of course, Bernard, the piggy-in-the middle, on their fraught journey through the corridors of power. Easily the sharpest political comedy every written, with clandestine help from real civil servants, and satire that bites so close to home it sometimes seems more like a documentary. This does the impossible: it makes politics not just fun but hilariously funny.

Synopsis
Featuring the every episode from both Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister , which ran for five and two series, respectively.

Probably correct to end this after five series
Review date: 2008-08-09 Rating: 8 out of 10

I've just finished watching all five series over the course of about a month. The tragedy of the 'Yes Prime Minister' episodes was that while Eddington and Hawthorne's acting just got better and better, the writing plateau-ed, and conceivably declined.

Whole speeches get repeated -- e.g. "The Morning Star is for people who believe another country should run this country ..." -- but of course, these were written pre-video, so the writers' assumption must have been that, over an interval of nine years, people simply wouldn't notice the repetition. Tedious re-working of "need-to-know" convolutions crop up repeatedly, right to the final episode. But the jewel of the series -- the relationship between 'Humpy' and Hacker -- just sparkles brighter.

Curiously, when the series first screened, I never much bothered with it, and anyway, at the time I much preferred Derek Fowlds to Nigel Hawthorne. But then I was, of course, a Basil Brush babe. Now I just find Fowlds' verbal quips annoying. The writers really didn't fill out his character.

In one episode Hawthorne is shown in bed with his wife, who we assume is a woman, although we never see her face. He occasionally is made to state an anti-gay remark as Sir Humpy. Ironic...

All the women in this series are a bit too strident and verbose; even Hacker's wife seems a proto-Thatcher. But this was the era of big hairdos and shoulder pads. My favourite female is Eleanor Bron's character in the episode where Hacker is desperate to promote a woman. (Despite her obvious competence, she turns him down because she's just accepted a job with a merchant bank.)

Apart from Nigel Hawthorne's wonderful range of expressions, this really isn't visual comedy. In the absence of any eye candy, I found my gaze roving across Paul Eddington's strangely bouffant quiff. I also wondered why he never had his teeth fixed -- his upper right canine really stuck out!

Anyway, heartily recommended, but don't feel the need to speed through the episodes like I have done.

Similar Products

Reviews


Superb!
Review date: 2008-08-04 Rating: 10 out of 10

I am from Northern Ireland - and don't really follow 'English' politics - but if you don't find 'Yes Minister' and 'Yes Prime Minister' hilarious then, well... what is wrong with you??

Just like fine wine!
Review date: 2008-05-29 Rating: 10 out of 10

This gets better with age.
I can not begin to express how much I love Yes Minister & Yes Prime Minister.
I own this and I still cant get enough of it. Every time I watch it I discover new things I love about it. Classic TV!

Just...classic
Review date: 2007-08-16 Rating: 8 out of 10

What to say? 'Yes Minister' and 'Yes Prime Minister' were Margaret Thatcher's favourite sitcoms, which should be evidence enough that they were in no way timely. Thatcher liked to think that she was battling against the establishment, but in fact she presided over a fatal politicising of the civil service. Her press secretary Bernard Ingham, ostensibly a Civil Servant, was in reality little more than her trained snapping Yorkshire poodle.

No, the glory of these shows is not that they were true to the time in which they were broadcast. They were true about political customs in British government in an age that had come to an end shortly after Thatcher's election, but that isn't what's great about them. What's fun is the Swiss-watch precision of the plotting, the insider knowledge of how government (sometimes) works, and the top-drawer performances of the three main actors, Paul Eddington, Nigel Hawthorne and Derek Fowlds. Eddington and Fowlds were already famous on the strength of 'The Good Life' and 'Basil Brush' respectively, but Hawthorne went from being a hard-working RSC stalwart to stardom on the basis of his gloriously feline turn as Sir Humphrey Appleby.

My personal favourite character is Derek Fowlds' Bernard, ever trying to do the right thing by both his masters and occasionally coming out with some fantastically abstruse bit of utterly irrelevant classical scholarship. But I'm glad this show had two other stars: Eddington was a wonderful comic actor who died relatively young of a rare form of cancer, but he was in his element here as the publicity-seeking buffoon Jim Hacker. Hawthorne took a pretty tough role and ran with it, and if he hadn't we might never had had such performances as his literally manic George III in 'The Madness of King George.' Even if he hadn't done that, Sir Humphrey is a great achievement.

Perhaps the greatest episode of all is the Yes Minister Christmas special, Party Games, in which Hacker - to everyone's mutual disbelief - finally rises to the top job. A glorious moment in British TV comedy, and who cares that it had nothing to do with British politics at the time? It may turn out to be true in the near future...

Political satire at its very best
Review date: 2007-03-01 Rating: 10 out of 10

Yes Minister was a satirical British sitcom that was first transmitted by BBC television and radio between 1980 and 1984. The sequel, Yes, Prime Minister, ran from 1986 to 1988. Together, the two series comprise 38 episodes, all but one of which last half an hour.

Set in the private office in Whitehall of a British government cabinet minister (and, in the second series, in 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 or departmental changes, opposed by the will of the British Civil Service, in particular his Permanent Secretary (senior civil servant), 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"), uttered by Sir Humhprey as he quietly relishes his victory over his "political master" (or, occasionally, acknowledges defeat).

A huge 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.

Our nearest modern equivalent is the excellent The Thick of It - but it is much more hardcore and may not appeal to those who originally like Yes Minister.The series have been cited by political scientists for their accurate and sophisticated portrayal of the relationships between civil servants and politicians - I guess that says it all really. I doubt anyone reading this has not heard of the series - a great gift.

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Nigel Hawthorne
Derek Fowlds
Paul Eddington

Creators:
Nigel Hawthorne (Primary Contributor)
Paul Eddington (Primary Contributor)

Recording label: 2 Entertain Video
Manufacturer: 2 Entertain Video
EAN: 5014503211325
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 7
Format: Box set, Full Screen, PAL,
Release date: 2006-10-16
Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
Audience rating: Parental Guidance
Region code: 2
Running time: 1140 minutes
Language: English (Original Language)

Add to Cart

© 2006 Darren Hester, DesignsByDarren.com, Some Rights Reserved.
Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional