In politics, you have to really get behind somebody before you can stab them in the back! Named one of the Top Ten TV programs of all time by the British Film Institute, this brilliantly observed comedy of manners pits the well-meaning Jim Hacker, a newly appointed Cabinet Minister, against the machinations of a career civil servant, Sir Humphrey Appleby, in the ultimate political marriage of inconvenience. Paul Eddington (Good Neighbors) stars as the The Right Honorable Jim Hacker, a role that was written especially for him, and Academy Award nominee Nigel Hawthorne (The Madness of King George) first drew wide notice in the role of Sir Humphrey Appleby. Yes Minister is the first - and only - series to win the British Academy Award for Best Comedy three years running.
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. The pilot episode, "Open Government," is curious in that it contains opening and closing credits different from and distinctly inferior to the rest of the series. You also sense that Mrs. Hacker was originally intended to have a larger role, with comedy focusing 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's mousy private secretary Bernard making occasional interjections.
While Sir Humphrey is at times a little too sinister for sitcom consumption, all the series' classic features quickly show up: Hacker's occasional Churchillian bombast, followed by panicky double takes when flummoxed, and 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 and slashing red tape in episodes like "The Economy Drive." It's ironic that when Yes, Minister 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 satirized here. --David Stubbs
