Thursday, October 25, 2007

An Interview with the Creator of Sir Humphrey Appleby



This afternoon I had the pleasure of interviewing Sir Antony Jay, the co-creator of Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister. Here's a five minute clip. For the full interview, click HERE. The rest is mainly about his views on the future of the BBC.

8 comments:

Wrinkled Weasel said...

A big shock awaits viewers. You see the opening credits - and there is a young Iain Dale with fluorescent brown hair, and then live to the studio and he's gone grey!

Seriously, a a good interview with a very funny quote as to why Cecil Parker wasn't cast as Sir Humphrey.

It could have done with some editing down.

Anonymous said...

This was an excellent and engaging interview.

One interesting (at least, I think it is) thing is, although then-Singapore Prime Minister Lee Kwan Yew didn't allow foreign comedies on Singapore television because he thought they were destructive and disrespectful of authority and he was running a very newly-formed country, the 'Yes, Minister'and 'Yes, Prime Minister' series was allowed while LKY himself was prime minister because he thought they were so funny.

I don't know if Anthony Jay knew an exception had been made for his series.

Anonymous said...

Is it true, that the BBC refused to commission a further series, called 'yes, commissioner' based in Brussels??

Anonymous said...

When I lived in Singapore I formed an opinion that some of what was printed in "The Straits Times" was published to show the locals what an inept country we were. Perhaps this is the same, YPM.

James Higham said...

Iain, is there a transcript [I can't access video yet]?

Anonymous said...

It was a truly outstanding show. I remember, growing up under Margaret Thatcher, who didn't funk brave decisions, Jim Hacker didn't seem that relevant. Then under Major with his small majority after 1992 and Bliar with his craven pandering to newspapers, it seemed spot on.

Anonymous said...

Living Next to Rumanians - I never got the feeling that TheStraits Times and SCB attempted to make Britain look inept. If they had, they would have shown more British comedies which are, by and large, very unfunny. 'Yes, Minister' was shown because LKY liked it personally.

Certainly, though, he didn't like the idea of 'Western values' being imported into Singapore, and in school, the children are inculcated with Eastern values. Which puts them 100% ahead of Britain, where the children are inculcated with no values.

Iain Dale said...

The video is there. We do not do transcripts.