If politics is something down your alley and you believe Laughter is the Best Medicine, then YES MINISTER is just the right prescription for you. A devilishly humorous, satirical commentary on the British political system, the complete YES MINISTER series of 21 episodes is nothing short of a laugh riot. The success of this sitcom was so tremendous that when the television scripts were compiled into a book, it became a best seller. The book is basically presented in the form of a diary - quoting verbatim from letters, memos and reproducing charts and photographs.
Cast of characters:
The Rt. Honorable James aka ’’Jim’ Hacker MP just elected from Birmingham East, becomes the Minister at the Department of Administrative affairs (DAA). Jim Hacker is as ordinary a Minister as it gets - a former journalist with a degree from the London School of Economics, his ’’principled stands’’ are constantly at loggerheads with his populist compulsions - no prizes for guessing the victor. He arrives with all noble intentions of ’’changing the system’’ and ’’wanting to make a difference’’. At the same time he tries every trick in the trade to try and further his high political ambitious, sometimes with disastrous effects.
To help him ’’formulate and implement critical Government policy’’, he is assisted by the dashing but shrewd Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby, K.C.B., M.V.O., M.A. (Oxon.). Sir Humphrey, a battle-weary veteran of the Civil Services, has seen so many Ministers come and go by, that he is under no doubt that it is his ’’moral responsibility to run the country’’. And this he accomplishes by keeping the Minister in the dark as much as possible whilst resolutely fighting for higher budgets, increased spending and more recruitment in a department already employing 23000 people. (The irony being DAA advices other Depts. on running their ministries effectively) He brilliantly foils any attempt by Hacker to cut him to size and
effectively stonewalls every constructive contribution of Hackers (which aren’t many anyway)
Caught between these two is Hacker’s Personal Private Secretary, Bernard Woolley. Woolley is the classic foil to both the principal adversaries, forever shifting in his loyalties. While he is sympathetic to Hacker’s honest intentions, he is also clearly aware of his loyalty to his Civil Service roots. A clear case of a servant caught in the predicament of serving two masters. Sir Humphrey sees a very bright future for this ’’young upstart’’ for he speaks the English language like a true Civil Servant (to be read as: Enigmatic silences and winding digressions)
Whats it all about?
The characters are intricately etched out, the stories are delightfully convoluted - care is taken to show how even the slightest political issues flare up to massive
confrontations and how sensitive, messy situations are defused in the most care free manner. Over the course of these 21 stories, Hacker and Sir Humphrey wrangle over everything starting from transparency in Government, corruption, promotions and wages, elections, protocol to women empowerment. Hacker starts off by losing most of the time to Sir Humphrey but as he gains experience as a Minister (read as: learns how to tackle the Civil Service), he scores his victories too. Along the way he is also forced to work with Sir Humphrey for the ’’common good’’ when there is a serious proposal to do away with the DAA.
Of the 21, my personal favorites are BIG BROTHER, THE SKELATON IN THE CUPBOARD and THE GREASY POLE, quite obviously episodes where Hacker gets the better of Sir Humphrey. (Everybody loves the underdog, don’t we? ) To reveal more about each and every story would be unfair to the scripts. But just to give a flavor of whats in store for you, here are a few choicest exchanges
Jim Hacker: ’’Who else is in this department?’’
Sir Humphrey: ’’Well briefly, Sir, I am the Permanent Under Secretary of State, known as the Permanent Secretary. Woolley here is your Principal Private Secretary, I too have a Principal Private Secretary and he is the Principal Private Secretary to
the Permanent Secretary. Directly responsible to me are 10 Deputy Secretaries, 87 Under Secretaries and 219 Assistant Secretaries. Directly responsible to the Principal Private Secretary are plain Private Secretaries, and the Prime Minister
will be appointing 2 Parliamentary Under Secretaries and you will be appointing your own Parliamentary Private Secretary.’’
Jim Hacker: ’’Do they all type?’’
Jim Hacker: ’’The opposition isn’t the opposition.’’
Annie Hacker: ’’No of course not, silly of me. They are just called the opposition.’’
Jim Hacker: ’’They are only the opposition in exile. The Civil Service is the opposition in residence.’’
Jim Hacker: ’’Humphrey, do you see it as part of your job to help Ministers make fools of themselves?’’
Sir Humphrey: ’’Well, I never met one that needed any help.’’
Jim Hacker: ’’Fortunately Bernard, most of our journalists are so incompetent that they have the gravest difficulty in finding out that today is Wednesday.’’
Bernard Woolley: ’’It’s actually Thursday, Minister.’’
Bill Pritchard: ’’The Sun specifically asked if you could be photographed amongst the donkeys.’’
Jim Hacker: ’’I’m not sure about the donkeys. What do you think, Bernard?’’
Bernard Woolley: ’’Well even if the Sun has no ulterior motive, it will be a gift for Private Eye: You with a crowd of other donkeys. I mean, that’s what they would say, Minister. Or: A meeting of the inner-Cabinet.’’
Sir Humphrey: ’’He that would keep a secret, must keep it secret that he has a secret to keep.’’
Jim Hacker: ’’Who said that?’’
Bernard Woolley: ’’It was Sir Humphrey.’’
Jim Hacker: ’’Nothing wrong with subsidizing sports: sport is educational.’’
Sir Humphrey: ’’We have sex education too. Should we subsidize sex perhaps?’’
Bernard Woolley: ’’Could we?’’
source: https://yes-minister.com
The YES MINISTER series is quintessential British humor at its best. It was tweaked around to suit the Indian context as JI MANTRIJI but its a pale shadow of the original. On the whole YES MINISTER is funny, witty and so true.
Highly recommended !!