The show, once again, had demonstrated its dictum that truth was funnier than fiction. While most people just laughed at a very entertaining episode, the few who were in the know wondered what would be the next secret to be screened.
8
Interregnum
If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change.
After the third series of Yes Minister, there was a pause for thought. For the first time since the sitcom started, there was a degree of doubt about its future.
The BBC in those days had a wise and relaxed ‘wait and see’ attitude when it came to recommissioning many of its most successful shows. Preferring to let its best sitcoms progress at a pace that suited the programme-makers rather than the channel controllers, the message to the writers was always to wait until they felt that they had something worthwhile to say, and then pick up the telephone and let an executive know. It was only at this point that the wheels would be set in motion for another series to be made.
John Howard Davies had recently been promoted to Head of Light Entertainment, while Gareth Gwenlan, another seasoned supporter of sitcoms, had replaced him as Head of Comedy, so Yes Minister still had the right friends in the right places. There was no real prospect, therefore, of the BBC suddenly losing interest in the show.
There were also still plenty of influential fans who were eager for further instalments. In June 1983, for example, shortly after the General Election, Jonathan Lynn was pleased to find that Margaret Thatcher remained a fervent admirer of the show. He had written to her, somewhat surprisingly considering his left-of-centre reputation, to congratulate her on her ‘magnificent and excellent election victory’,1 which prompted a predictably warm response. She wrote back quickly, by hand, not only to thank him for the sentiment but also to reaffirm her affection for the sitcom:
I love your programmes. Every one a winner. The dialogue and timing are superb. And the insight into the thought processes of politicians and civil servants is supremely perceptive.2
There was just as deep an appreciation for the show over at the Labour Party’s HQ in Walworth Road, where, ironically, its Leader, Neil Kinnock, and his then Press Secretary, Patricia Hewitt, had recently written and performed an unofficial Yes Minister sketch attacking Thatcher’s handling of the Falklands conflict:
INTRO:
And now a word from one of the more alert, far-seeing of the present Government’s ministers. The Minister for Bureaucratic Indifference, Mr Jim Hacker.
HACKER:
Hello everyone. Some of our critics are saying that my colleagues and I are too easily manipulated by our civil servants. But this is just rubbish! As I intend now to demonstrate to you. I’ve just sent for my new Permanent Secretary (the one who replaced Sir Humphrey), Dame Patricia.
HEWITT:
You wanted to see me, Minister?
HACKER:
Ah yes, Dame Patricia. There’s something about the Government’s loan to Argentina that I just can’t understand.
HEWITT:
That doesn’t really surprise me, Minister.
HACKER:
What?
HEWITT:
Nothing, Minister.
HACKER:
Well, the thing is, since they’re still threatening us, why in God’s name are we lending them money?
HEWITT:
Well, isn’t it quite obvious, Minister?
HACKER:
No.
HEWITT:
Well, if we forced them to repay it, it would completely destroy Argentina’s economy.
HACKER:
Well, what’s wrong with that? It’s a pity someone didn’t think of that last April, it could have saved us a war!
HEWITT:
Ah, but we did think of it last April, Minister.
HACKER:
What?! So why didn’t we blow the whistle on the Argies then and stop the killing?
HEWITT:
Minister, it’s really all quite simple. The fact is that such a course would have ensured an inauspicious prognosis for the liquidity of our fiscal institutions.
HACKER:
What does that mean?
HEWITT:
The banks would have lost money.
HACKER:
Why?
HEWITT:
[Sighs as if with a stupid child] Oh dear, let me put it this way, Minister. If we asked for our money back the Argentines would be declared bankrupt and they wouldn’t have to pay us anything at all.
HACKER:
Just let me get this right … are you trying to tell me that we sent thousands of troops pissing all over the South Atlantic rather than write off a few quid on a bad debt?
HEWITT:
Oh, not a ‘few’ quid, Minister, several millions actually.
HACKER:
But why so much money?
HEWITT:
Because, Minister, Argentina is like us, and has to pay for life’s little necessities … like fighter planes, Exocets, artillery, that sort of thing.
HACKER:
What – so they can then use them on British soldiers?
HEWITT:
Well, technically that is correct, Minister. They may do that from time to time, but you have to remember, Minister, they are our friends.
HACKER:
Friends?!
HEWITT:
Quite so, Minister, and an essential bulwark against the Communists.
HACKER:
Oh, are they? I see! Well, it’s a good thing we aren’t lending money to the Communists.
HEWITT:
Well, that’s not strictly true either, Minister. There are one or two outstanding financial arrangements with the Eastern Bloc, especially with Poland.
HACKER:
Poland? Dame Patricia, I’ve just had a brilliant idea!
HEWITT:
I was afraid of that. [I should have used more long words.]
HACKER:
Why don’t we tell General Jaruzelski that unless he ends repression against Solidarity we will bankrupt his country?
HEWITT:
Because, Minister, if repression ends, there’ll be more civil unrest, the Polish economy will destabilise, fiscal controls will evaporate and the banks …
HACKER:
I see: will lose money. So, let me get this straight, Dame Patricia. It is the policy of this Government to go to war with its friends, to connive at the repressive policies of its enemies … and to lend money to both.
HEWITT:
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
HACKER:
You know, Dame Patricia, sometimes I think the country is being run by complete idiots.
HEWITT:
Yes, Minister.3
On this one topic, therefore, even the Government and its Opposition were united. All of the country’s politicians wanted Yes Minister to come back.
Neither Jay nor Lynn, however, was sure about writing any more episodes. For one thing, the research involved for each and every script was extraordinarily time-consuming and also extremely tiring. In those days, without the option of a few easy clicks on a computer, the writers had to travel and consult all of the relevant libraries and archives in person, as well as devote hours and hours to wining and dining their increasingly wide range of political and bureaucratic moles. The consequence was that they had become the willing victims of their own remarkably meticulous attention to detail.
They were also the victims of their own success. The growing popularity of the show had gradually increased the pressure on them to keep topping their own triumphs, and this did not just drain their creative energy but also distracted them from their various solo projects.
Although the general public probably regarded them simply as ‘the Yes Minister writers’, the sitcom remained, in truth, a relatively low-paid, part-time project, as Jay continued to oversee the very busy Video Arts and Lynn carried on with his theatrical and other media interests. It was getting harder and harder for t
hem to find the spare time to collaborate on the show.
Finally, they were caught in two minds as to whether continuing would be wise for the long-term reputation of the sitcom. They loved it, and were very proud of what they, and all of their colleagues, had so far achieved, and thus were loath, at this stage, to risk devaluing its reputation by allowing it to outstay its welcome.
The main creative issue was that Hacker had been in charge of the DAA now for three years, and such longevity was becoming less and less believable. Most Ministers, in real life, stayed for no more than two-thirds of that time in any one Department before being demoted, promoted or shifted sideways. Richard Crossman, for example, had spent a mere twenty-two months as Minister of Housing and Local Government, and then just nineteen months as Secretary of State for Health and Social Services.
Jay and Lynn could, of course, have moved him to another Department via a reshuffle, but the whole point of inventing the all-purpose DAA had been to avoid him being identified with a specific, limited area, and so, dramatically, he seemed destined to be stuck where he was. While the writers were confident about keeping the stories plausible, they were less sure about how to keep their Minister’s career sufficiently convincing. It was thus tempting to call time on his, and the show’s, tenure.
The actors, meanwhile, were too distracted by other projects to reflect for very long on what if anything might happen next with their sitcom. ‘As far as we knew,’ Derek Fowlds would recall, ‘they were thinking of ways to change it while keeping us all together.’4 They trusted the writers to reach a decision that would be in the best interests of the show, but, in the meantime, as the arch pragmatists that their profession tends to nurture, they immersed themselves in other work.
Paul Eddington rarely seemed to have a blank page in his diary. He appeared on television alongside Nanette Newman in another sitcom, Let There Be Love (BBC2, 1983), which he later dismissed as ‘rather depressing’ because the standard of the scripts fell far below those of Yes Minister.5 In the theatre, he moved swiftly from one production to another, starring in the autumn of 1983 in two plays at Bristol Old Vic (Terence Rattigan’s The Browning Version and Peter Shaffer’s Black Comedy) and then in the West End in Charles Dyer’s Lovers Dancing at the Albery, before moving on to Chichester in the summer of 1984 to star in a revival of Alan Bennett’s Forty Years On. He also worked on several radio shows, recorded innumerable voiceovers, appeared in commercials and even managed to squeeze in a few more promotional trips abroad.
Nigel Hawthorne was not quite as active, preferring to keep some time free to relax out of the spotlight with his partner Trevor Bentham, but he still selected a series of interesting stage projects during this period, appearing during the summer of 1983 at The Pit in two prestigious RSC productions: Ibsen’s Peer Gynt and Molière’s Tartuffe, supporting Antony Sher. There were also a few radio and television plays, including a memorable version of André Brink’s A Dry White Season for BBC Radio 4 in February 1983.
Derek Fowlds worked just as steadily. He appeared in February 1983 at the Redgrave Theatre, Farnham in Robin Hawdon’s frenetic new farce The Birthday Suite, and then toured in several other productions. There was also a starring role in the pilot of an unusual ITV sitcom called Affairs of the Heart (focusing on a man recovering from a heart attack, it would eventually reappear as a series a couple of years later).
As the months went by, the BBC was certainly still very interested in seeing the show continue, but it had failed to realise how undervalued the two writers had come to feel. Yes Minister was, after all, their idea, based on their research and built on their beautifully crafted scripts, but, whenever the show had been honoured for its success, the writers had been left neglected.
For example, every time the most prestigious award ceremonies came around, in spite of the fact that Yes Minister had always figured prominently on the list of nominations, Jay and Lynn, the writers, were notably not only overlooked but not even in attendance. ‘Each time Nigel [Hawthorne] and Sydney Lotterby or Peter Whitmore won BAFTA awards for our show,’ Jonathan Lynn would remember, ‘and each time we were not invited. We won the Broadcasting Press Guild Award twice, and we didn’t even know about it until Paul [Eddington], who was always gracious, rang my front-door bell, handed me the certificate and said, “I think this really belongs to you and Tony”’.6
As snubs go, this was probably the worst. There were, however, quite a few others.
Jay and Lynn had a similar experience with the people responsible for the recently established Public Lending Right programme, when they applied for royalties for their Yes Minister tie-in books. The letter they received in response pointed out that, as the author appeared to be ‘the Rt Hon. James Hacker MP’, neither Jay nor Lynn was entitled to any payments unless they could provide proof that they had made a significant contribution to the books.
It was no better closer to home. Jonathan Lynn’s wife used to shop at the same butcher’s, in Muswell Hill, as Paul Eddington’s wife, and on one occasion, when both of them were there, the butcher congratulated Eddington’s wife on her husband’s great success in Yes Minister, and then turned to Lynn’s wife and asked: ‘How’s your old man, Rita? Haven’t seen him on the telly much recently. Does he get any work now?’7
The lack of fame came as something of a relief. Both writers preferred their work, rather than themselves, to be well known. They did hope, nonetheless, that their efforts had at least been fully appreciated by the people behind the scenes at the BBC, and so they decided to see how much they were really esteemed by the powers that be.
Talks about another series were initiated, but the writers were in an uncompromising mood. ‘We asked for a lot more money,’ Lynn would recall, ‘and we didn’t hide our view that writers were disrespected by the BBC hierarchy, who had it in their power to change the perception of the writer’s pre-eminent contribution to television programmes.’ Naming their price, they asked for ten thousand pounds (between them) per script – very little by today’s media standards, and a relatively modest sum even in those days as far as commercial television was concerned, but still much more than the BBC, up to that point, had paid to a couple of sitcom writers. Somewhat surprised and shaken, the executives tried to reassure the pair, but failed to do enough. ‘The BBC wanted us to continue,’ said Lynn, ‘but it was not willing to step up financially.’8
The talks collapsed and the writers declared that they would move on to other projects. Their supporters at the BBC were saddened, but the pair did not seem to have any regrets. ‘As the BBC wouldn’t give us a pay rise of any consequence,’ Jonathan Lynn would say, ‘we were more than happy to move on. We both were busy with other work.’9
It came, in a way, as a relief. There was so much more, so much else, that both men wanted to do.
Antony Jay had plenty of other interests, both in politics and business, to occupy his time and was very much in the mood for pastures new. ‘We really did think that series three was the end,’ he later explained. ‘Anyway, I was pretty busy as chairman and script writer/editor of Video Arts.’10
Jonathan Lynn was excited at the prospect of taking on new challenges, not only back in the theatre but also now in films. He had received an offer from Hollywood.
John Landis, the director of such popular movies as Animal House (1978), The Blues Brothers (1980), An American Werewolf in London (1981) and Trading Places (1983), as well as the groundbreaking promotional video for Michael Jackson’s Thriller (1983), was planning to make his next movie a comedy-mystery inspired by the board game Cluedo, and he wanted Lynn to write the screenplay. Lynn agreed, but, by the time he had completed it, Landis had become distracted by other projects, and so, exploiting the fact that he was a major player, he pulled some strings so that Lynn could direct it instead. Released as Clue (1985), it would mark the start of a second career for Lynn as a Hollywood writer/director.
Back in Britain, he continued to work in the theatre, directing a prestigious
revival of Joe Orton’s black comedy Loot at the Ambassadors Theatre in London during the first half of 1984, and then transferring it to the Lyric for the rest of the year. The imaginative production, though extremely well received, was blighted by the tragic death of its star, Leonard Rossiter, who suffered a fatal heart attack in his dressing room on the evening of 5 October.
Lynn also found the time, between the two runs of Loot, to direct another high-profile play – an adaptation for the National Theatre by John Mortimer of the classic Georges Feydeau farce A Little Hotel on the Side – as well as work on another screenplay and, in collaboration with Monty Norman, a musical. As much as he loved Yes Minister, like Antony Jay, he was far too busy to miss it.
A Very Courageous Decision Page 23
