Yes Minister – Series 1

The first series of the elegant sitcom-cum-farce-cum-sophisticated political satire Yes Minister, setting off Paul Eddington's Jim Hacker, Minister for Administrative Affairs, against Nigel Hawthorne's discreetly obstructive civil servant Sir Humphrey. Series One 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 the series doesn't quite come fully to light--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.

On the DVD: Full screen, no special features except scene selection and straightforward text profiles of the principal actors here. --David Stubbs