The Men from the Ministry

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The Men from the Ministry was a British radio comedy series broadcast by the BBC between 1962 and 1977, and starring Wilfrid Hyde-White, Richard Murdoch and, from 1966, when he replaced Wilfrid Hyde-White, Deryck Guyler. Written by Edward Taylor with occasional contributions from John Graham and Ronald Baddiley, it ran for 14 series, totalling 147 half-hour episodes. A further 14 episodes were made by the BBC Transcription Service in 1980 but were never broadcast in the UK. Versions of the series were also made by YLE in Finland, Sveriges Radio (SR) in Sweden, and Springbok Radio in South Africa, where it was also made into a feature-length film.

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[edit] Format

The series was about the escapades of a team of lazy, bungling, incompetent Civil Servants, "Number One" - Roland Hamilton-Jones (Wilfrid Hyde-White) and later Deryck Lennox-Brown (Deryck Guyler), "Number Two" - Richard Lamb (Richard Murdoch), together with their rather dim, typo-prone, teenage Secretary Mildred Murfin (Norma Ronald), all watched-over by the lecherous, pompous, self-seeking Permanent Secretary Sir Gregory Pitkin (Roy Dotrice and later Ronald Baddiley), all members of the British Civil Service based in Whitehall, the stories centering on their fictitious "General Assistance Department" (analogous to the later "Department of Administrative Affairs" in Yes Minister), whose main function is to provide help and assistance to other overloaded governmental departments. Instead of providing 'assistance' the department manages to carry-out all manner of mix-ups, misunderstandings and general cock-ups that invariably lead to a thundering telling-off from Sir Gregory, who sees his 'hard earned' Civil Service career and pension disappearing before his eyes.

In one 1960's episode, "The Big Rocket", the General Assistance Department is put in charge of publicity for Britain's (almost non-existent) Space Programme. With "One" (Hamilton-Jones) out of the office and through a series of blunders by "Two" (Lamb), a Press Release is put out revealing the launch of an equally non-existent British space rocket, that is revealed to be carrying Britain's first female astronaut, subsequently unwittingly stated to be none-other than Mildred Murfin, the department's rather dim-witted secretary. This is a surprise to Mildred as she has that morning stormed out of the office announcing she is "going round Ma's". Through further misunderstandings this gets told to the Press and interpreted as the rocket "going around Mars" and the hapless "One" and "Two" are faced with the task of "bringing Mildred down to earth" in more senses than one whilst keeping the extent of their blunders from both the expectant public and their superiors.

In another later episode, "The Whitehall Castaways", Lennox-Brown, Lamb and Mildred row out to an island in the middle of a lake situated in Regent's Park (one of London's parks), the General Assistance Department having been given the task of ensuring the safety of a Great Bustard, a bird rare to Britain, that is nesting there. Neglecting to tie the boat-up properly, Lamb allows it to drift away and the trio are, as Mildred puts it, "marooned", none of them being able to swim the distance to the shore and Lennox-Brown having ordered the park to be closed to the public and not re-opened "until I give the order". Spending several weeks on the island, Lennox-Brown shows his leaderships skills, and Lamb shows signs of mental distress, whilst back at the office Sir Gregory is delighted with their non-attendance and the resulting prospect of finally being able to fire them, until a note cancelling an order for some wooden pixies is found leading him to the (erroneous) conclusion that they may have taken their own lives due to the shame of a recent blunder and his thoughts immediately turn to the possible effect this news will have on his future prospects. The trio are eventually released from their plight by a small boy and the unfortunate fate of the nesting bird and its eggs is revealed.

The characters are portrayed as inept and ineffectual, subject to all the usual human flaws such as greed, selfishness and incompetence. However, malice was never a factor and all the humour was very light-hearted. There was also a little broad satire in many of the episodes. Later series tended to recycle older scripts, with just names of people and places being changed.

[edit] Episodes

Main article: List of The Men from the Ministry episodes

[edit] Cast

Other occasionally recurring characters include "Lord Stilton", Sir Gregory's equally pompous boss, "Mr. 'Whizzer' Wilkins", Lennox-Brown and Lamb's aged and absent-minded colleague, and "Mr. Stack" - "Mr. Stack of 'Records'" - in charge of the Ministry's Records department and prone to taking naps in one of his filing cabinets. In the 1970 episode, Bye-bye Mildred, Sir Gregory does not appear and we hear instead "Sir Hector Gunn".

The antics of Lennox-Brown and Lamb would sometimes be reported in newsclips within the programme by "Forth Robertson", a parody of the then well-known reporter, Fyfe Robertson. Other 'news' items would be read-out by the real BBC newsreaders John Cole and Brian Martin. In the 1977 episode, Not on Your Telly, Sir Gregory is interviewed for the BBC Panorama programme by "Robin Gay" a thinly-disguised parody of the broadcaster Robin Day.

[edit] Theme music

The theme music for the BBC version was Top Dog, composed by Ivor Slaney (1921-1988) in 1960 and recorded by the Hilversum Radio Orchestra for De Wolfe.

[edit] Other versions

[edit] Yleisradio version

The Men from the Ministry has become a major success in Finland by the name of Knalli ja sateenvarjo ('A bowler hat and an umbrella'). It has been in the repertoire of Yleisradio (YLE) since 1979 and has been repeated twice. Scriptwriter Edward Taylor has also written some episodes only for the Finnish audience that have never been broadcast in the UK and he continues to write new episodes for YLE, the latest four of his new scripts having been aired in early 2008.

[edit] Sveriges Radio version

The Men from the Ministry was also produced in Sweden by Sveriges Radio (SR) as I plommonstop och paraply ('With a bowler hat and an umbrella') from 1963 to 1971. The role of Hamilton-Jones was played by Gunnar Björnstrand, who is noted for his acting in many films by Ingmar Bergman (A Lesson in Love, Smiles of a Summer Night, The Seventh Seal, The Magician, Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, etc). He was joined by famous Swedish actor and comedian Stig Järrel, who is noted for his role as the sadistic teacher Caligula in the film Torment (1944), directed by Alf Sjöberg after a screenplay by Ingmar Bergman. Both actors enjoyed a widespread popularity in Sweden and the radio series was popular. About 40 shows were made in Sweden.

[edit] Springbok Radio/Radio South Africa version

A South African adaptation of the series was also produced by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), featuring the same main characters but using local actors. Additional characters also made regular appearances. Produced by father/son team, Tom Meehan and Brian Squires for Springbok Radio between 1968 and 1985, and Radio South Africa from 1993 to 1995, the series eventually ran to about 900 episodes. After the demise of Springbok Radio in 1985, 71 episodes were subsequently re-recorded and broadcast on the SABC's Radio South Africa, this time produced by Don Ridgway.

[edit] External links

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