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150 essential rules from the award-winning co-writer of Yes Minster and Yes Prime Minister, Hollywood movie director, producer, novelist and actor. A host of hugely enjoyable examples drawn from Lynn's varied and successful career bring these rules to life, covering everything from inspiration, collaboration and the Seven Deadly Sins to the perils of unmotivated comic business, pitching screenplays in LA, sexist jokes and lunch with the Inland Revenue. Along the way, we meet a cast of luminaries including Leonard Rossiter, John Landis, Nigel Hawthorne, Paul Eddington, Jack Rosenthal and Jonathan's long-time co-writer, Antony Jay. As we travel with him from his first digs in Coventry to the sushi bars of Hollywood, Comedy Rules offers an enlightening journey into the world of comedy and an indispensible companion to the elusive art of its creation.
This brilliantly funny little book includes lists of interesting and little-known facts about the series, Sir Humphrey's finest obfuscations, Jim Hacker's speeches, the service's best acronyms, famous fans and their reflections, profiles and obituaries of the characters and the actors who played them, the Department for Administrative Affairs guide to using creative inertiaA , important dates, classic scenes, the entire legendary Margaret Thatcher sketch, and interviews with those in the knowA . This is the perfect Christmas gift for fans of British comedy.
Yes Minister is one of the most popular and critically successful British sit-coms of all time, partly due to its fascinatingly accurate observations of the eternal sparring between Paul Eddington's naive senior minister, Jim Hacker, and Nigel Hawthorne's infernally cunning Permanent Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby. Originally broadcast in three series from 1980 to 1984, Yes Minister won an unprecedented three BAFTA awards in a row, as well as an enduring appeal that has lived far beyond the series or its sequel Yes Prime Minister. Tracing the careers of Hacker, Sir Humphrey and his loyal sidekick Bernard, this amusing and brilliantly illustrated book will appeal to everyone who remembers the series with affection and can't resist watching the repeats. Containing obituaries of the three leading characters, written specially by Sir Anthony Jay, and the sketch written by Bernard Ingham for Margaret Thatcher to perform with Paul Eddington and Nigel Hawthorne, the book contains many surprises as well as reflections on the series and its importance by politicians and journalists of the day.
'Scalpel-sharp in observation, deceptively simple in construction... at its frequent best Yes Prime Minister exhibits the classical perfection of a Mozart sonata' - Richard Last in The Times 'Its closely observed portrayal of what goes on in the corridors of power has given me hours of pure joy' - Rt Hon. Margaret Thatcher MP 'Yes Prime Minister... is not only a continuing marvel of editing by Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay but also a collector's must' - John Coldstream in the Daily Telegraph 'Yes Prime Minister is a comedy in a class of its own' - Celia Brayfield in The Times
'We have had diaries from other Cabinet Ministers, but none I think which have been quite so illuminating... It is a fascinating diary... It is shorter than Barbara Castle's... and although it is rather more accurate than Dick Crossman's, it is distinctly funnier' - Lord Allen of Abbeydale (formerly Permanent Secretary at the Home Office) in The Times 'It has an entertainment and educational value which is unique. It is uproariously funny and passes the acid test of becoming more amusing at every subsequent reading... I will go so far as to claim that in the characters of Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey Appleby, Messrs Lynn and Jay have created something as immortal as P.G. Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster and Jeeves' - Brian Walden in The Standard
