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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #91 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-10-16
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Full Screen, PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 7
• Running time: 1140 minutes

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.

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Customer Reviews

Probably correct to end this after five series
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.

Superb!
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!
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!