@@benzienugent2010 just because filler words don't add meaning to a conversation, doesn't mean they don't have purpose. Every single word uttered had a distinct purpose, and this was how the scriptwriters told the joke well before it was even told. You could get the intended mood of a scene simply by comparing how much rambling they did, and quite how overly complex the vernacular became
I was a Civil Servant for 25 years and every episode was like being back at my old office. All civil servants adopt a no fault policy. That means you must not make a mistake and therefore get a more rapid promotion. The downside is that you therefore don't actually do anything and in doing nothing you cannot make a mistake. Easy isn't it!
There are some schools of thought that equate the value of governmental deadlock to the value of legislative inaction, deriving theories of economic stability from them.
Ah Trevor, such wise words. I started working in a wool store in my v.early 20s. We had wool packs in bale stands for floor sweepings. In the rush to get home at the end of the day they were often left full, much to the chagrin of the next shift. One day, in a burst of youthful enthusiasm i made sure to empty them. Along came another chap with a longer work history. He started to remove the wool packs. I watched carefully, conscious i may have got it wrong. No, he just put them back exactly the same way as i had already done. He was just apearing to be busy so he didnt get sent home, or get another dirtier job and no doubt would claim the credit for my good deed.....people say there is no I in team. They are right, but that taught me there isn't a YOU either.
Jesus, I missed that. Can't believe it, so many people involved with this show are now dead but it is an amazing testament to them that it is still being watched.
"Unfortunately, although the answer was indeed clear, simple and straightforward, there is some difficulty in justifiably assigning to it the fourth of the epithets you applied to the statement inasmuch as the precise correlation between the information you communicated and the facts insofar as they can be determined and demonstrated is such as to cause epistemological problems of sufficient magnitude as to lay upon the logical and semantic resources of the English language a heavier burden than they can reasonably be expected to bear." BRILLIANT!!!
"Apparently, the fact that you needed to know was not known at the time that the now known need-to-know was known. And therefore, those that needed to advise and inform the home secretary perhaps felt that the information that he needed, as to whether to inform the highest authority of the known information, was not yet known. And therefore there was no authority for the authority to be informed, because the need-to-know was not at that time known or needed." I love how Humphrey and Bernard have different ways of being incomprehensible; Humphrey relies on his immense vocabulary to draw on words Hacker won't understand, while Bernard uses a simple vocabulary with ridiculously contorted sentence structures and the repetition of certain words. Personally, I've never had trouble with Humphrey (I'm a fan of obscure vocabulary so I usually understand each word he uses,) but with Bernard I really have to concentrate.
I have to listen closely to make sense of Sir Humphrey's convoluted dialogue, but some reason its really fun. One of the things that makes Yes Minister and Yes PM one of my favourite shows of all time.
"Apparently, the fact that you needed to know was not known at the time that the now known need-to-know was known. And therefore, those that needed to advise and inform the home secretary perhaps felt that the information that he needed, as to whether to inform the highest authority of the known information, was not yet known. And therefore there was no authority for the authority to be informed, because the need-to-know was not at that time known or needed." I'm proud I understood this the first time through.
e.g Pakistani Army running the country stealing from the poor and pointing to the Kashmir problem which technically and realistically is not a problem except in the minds of the puppets and the cronies of the Pakistani Army so as to create an optical illusion and political dilemma thus creating an international conundrum unable to be resolved and the culprits brought to justice who deliberately have ruined a peaceful state of existence within the Indian Union.
In Cryptography and Computer Security, we have Kerckhoff's principle, which states that any security system should not be broken by transparency. You should always assume everyone else knows how your security systems work. With that assumption you should make a system that they cannot break while knowing of its inner workings. Politics has not yet reached this insight. And yes, sometimes secrecy is needed. But it needs to be done for the right reasons. Keeping military strategy, espionage, or internal telephone numbers secret is good, as they are needed for functional operations. Keeping the poverty rates among the employed secret to prevent people from seeing the number of working poor, that is just corrupt dishonesty, as its only purpose is to stop government accountability, the most important part of democracy.
Hawthorne and Eddington get a lot of credit for their acting and their monologues, But the guy who played Bernard had one hell of a tongue twister in this scene and he delivered it perfectly while at the same time infusing it with Bernard's personality. Superb acting and much underrated.
Bernard's contribution sounds remarkably like Donald Rumsfeld's "known unknowns etc" comments during the second Iraq war 14 years after this episode was first shown. Was he a fan of "Yes, Prime Minister"?
"Bernard Wooley" was a "high-flyer", a brilliant graduate from Oxford university, fast-tracked through the Civil Service and given the difficult post of Principal Private Secretary to a minister (Hacker). In that post, he had to carefully balance the confidentiality of the Minister with the requirements of the Civil Service. Being adept at handling this proved that he was destined for high office, eventually (according to the books which accompanied the TV series) becoming Sir Bernard Wooley, Cabinet Secretary. He learned quickly from Sir Humphrey Appleby and developed his linguistic gymnastics from observing him in action.
@@auto27user longer still even, the Britons against the Romans (with the help of the Gauls who'd been 'civilised' and served as Auxilia), and before that still the tribes of Britannia against the tribes of Gaul. Our two peoples have ever been at war, ever since the English Channel was formed thousands of years ago.
@@greypilgrim228 Britannia tribes were Scots and Irish today, don't think they count. The earliest feud that i know of is around the three emperor crisis round 3rd century
@@auto27user Britannia would not have been exclusively Scots and Irish, many English and Welsh still have traces of ancient Britons ancestry in their DNA. That's like saying because the Scots and Irish bred with Vikings that they're no longer proper Celts. Of course we're still the descendants of the ancient Britons, it's just some of us are closer than others.
@@auto27user Britannia tribes were mainly welsh with scots being a mixture of irish anglo saxon and welsh and irish being welsh. English have british ancestors but are more germanic expecially in the south east while welsh are most similar to neolithic inhabitants (the first people who lived there) though that's mainly the north welsh, with the south welsh having more foreign influence due to migration.
Brilliance beyond Brilliance. There is absolutely no communication today let alone this crisp English speaking that is music to my hears. Sir Humphrey was most gifted Naturally in speech.
"The trouble today has arisen because of your own error of judgment in making this denial." and "You should not have denied something about which you did not know." So good.
As much as the attention goes to Sir Humphrey taking a paragraph to say "You lied," I think I like Bernard's word juggle even more. Both brilliantly written and performed.
Yes .. Bernard was brilliant as well and had some amazing tongue twister dialogue. The three of them were without parallel. What an incredibly clever series with genius writers. Those were the days .
Ah yes the English language, of which I am a native speaker with a local accent where I grew up. Being a native speaker I have been interested in the language and it's history and the more you learn about the language, it is a language a native speaker can have pride in. Stay well and ciao for now
The fact that this was the final episode always made me hungry for more. Whilst the episode ended favorably for the PM, and while we did touch on everything that made the series the apex of intellectualism insofar as comedy shows are concerned, it didn't feel like a fitting finale to the lives of these three individuals, not to mention all of their colleagues and acquaintances.
@@guguigugu Ive been crazy about this show for 20 years, and as far as I know, apart from 20 yrs ago when it was on the TV, I only could find full episodes by and very sparcely, so I just decided to buy the whole box of Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister. Best buy and cheap at that.
@Edward Walters , trust me, speaking from experience, it NEVER grows old, Ive watched on a loop and every time I still laugh like it was the first time. I mean, where can you find jokes like "Then why did the Germans go into the European Union? to cleanse themselves of genocide and reapply to join the human race" in the Episode where they explain de EEC ruclips.net/video/rvYuoWyk8iU/видео.html Tho' if you know the UK, there's another one that makes me cry with laughter, the "Who reads the papers" ep: that's just Sheer Genius! ruclips.net/video/DGscoaUWW2M/видео.html
If you compare the first epidode of "yes, Prime Minister" and this one (the last one) you notice Paul Eddington's declining health (which is also why in most of the second season simply sits behind his desk and does not move around a lot) Yet he still manages to put on a stellar performance
"Yes Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister" were the brilliantly conceived versions and written comic chronicles correlating nicely to Tory Chief Whip, Francis Urquhart, and his subsequently memorable and duplicitous reign as Prime Minister in "House of Cards," "To Play A King," and "Final Cut." Both are masterworks of political intrigue, biting satire, willful political public contempt and class social derision.
I met a couple on a train in days gone by, and the husband happened to work for the Australian Civil Service, and he said of this show "Its not a comedy, its a documentary" hahaha
Margaret Thatcher loved this show , and she admitted to giving the writers material based on her experiences of dealing with the civil service. So yeah its pretty true to life.
@randomguy8196 - It wasn't just bad. Ministers would be expected to resign over such matters. They sometimes did and sometimes didn't but it always damaged their careers.
I have a philosophy degree, did some epistemology too, I know many complicated words and can speak about abstract concepts, yet I still have to do a double take despite having watched this many times this since I was 14. Nigel Hawthorne and Derek Fowlds are brilliant.
Coming from an American-English language perspective, I had to seriously focus on what was being said to follow it, but found no British-English terms (not counting official titles, etc. of course) that I did not immediately understand. Absolutely well done! Definitely understandable and long-winded, but hilarious nonetheless! 😅
I generally understood Sir Humphrey's paragraph-length sentences, but Bernard and Sir Frank Gordon (I think the latter has only one such instance of circumlocution) were difficult.
I have watched a lot of these marvelous scenes, but this is easily my favorite! I particularly love his final line, "in government, there is always something to be discreet about" -- take that Wikileaks!
You are very insulting, but not very convincing. Unless you assume that it is always wrong for the government to use surveillance (bugging telephones, for example), this is in no way an argument for indiscrimate leaking of government secrets, let alone Wikileaks in particular. Surveillance can be done to detect wrongdoing; is it your belief that only governments engage in wrongdoing? I wish life were that simple. And since Wikileaks has facilitated the rise to power of an authoritarian clique you are in no position to lecture others about facilitating despotism.
You are very insulting, but not very convincing. Unless you assume that it is always wrong for the government to use surveillance (bugging telephones, for example), this is in no way an argument for indiscrimate leaking of government secrets, let alone Wikileaks in particular. Surveillance can be done to detect wrongdoing; is it your belief that only governments engage in wrongdoing? I wish life were that simple. And since Wikileaks has facilitated the rise to power of an authoritarian clique you are in no position to lecture others about facilitating despotism.
You are very insulting, but not very convincing. Unless you assume that it is always wrong for the government to use surveillance (bugging telephones, for example), this is in no way an argument for indiscrimate leaking of government secrets, let alone Wikileaks in particular. Surveillance can be done to detect wrongdoing; is it your belief that only governments engage in wrongdoing? I wish life were that simple. And since Wikileaks has facilitated the rise to power of an authoritarian clique you are in no position to lecture others about facilitating despotism.
What I find most telling about this scene is that Hacker was primarily bothered about being seen to have misled the House and that things were being kept from him but he didn't seem at all concerned (let alone outraged) that Halifax was being bugged. Hypocrisy at its finest - someone who had their priorities right would've demanded the answer to that first. But Hacker had been completely and utterly house-trained by this point; he'd long gone native.
@@lachyt5247 very practical indeed. Those who believe that bugging is reprehensible are the same people who believe in equality and justice; all perfectly good ideas, of course, but ideas hopelessly unrealistic in politics.
The same Damned practice if every President of the U.S. since FDR who 'secretly bugged' his own conversations (for future protection--LoL). Presidents all claim the Moral High-ground to Defend the 4 Freedoms of FDR...then meet with the G-7, or G-20 to sell that concept OUT!!..
@@keswarnathragbar8225 not a laugh track - live audiance. Just because you don't understand it enough to see the humour don't start thinking none of us understand it.
Nobody seems to mention the writers, they are the ones that came up with the dialogue, brilliant though the delivery and cast are, don’t forget they made it brilliant for the actors.
@Cliff UK I dont think ANYONE forgets the script writers: there would be no show without them, its a group effort, between the most genius of writers and the best actors, but all of us who are crazy about this show, love it BECAUSE of its amazingly timless scripts!! I found out some episodes are shown and debated in Political Science courses, which is not surprising at all, given the inmense quality of its writing. WE NEVER FORGET THE WRITERS, that's why we have been watching on a loop for almost 20 years, in my case!!
Any one who is the head of an organisation - be it government, business, charity or family - who is expected to exercise due care, skill and diligence based on their individual capacity, to exercise their own judgment in making decisions; will always, always have something to be discrete about. Such persons often confuse what they ASSUME or THINK they know with what they ACTUALLY know; and what they WANT to say with what they NEED to say. Excellent writing, Tony Jay & Jon Lynn.
@Neville Abbott there is one episode which I love in which I caught the brilliant and never ever breaking character Sir Nigel Hawthorne (Sir Humphrey ) laughing under his nose: its at the beggining of the episode "Who reads the Papers" on Yes, Prime Minister. And when Derek Fowlds says his final line, I think he buries his head on the table bc he too is laughing out loud. :D .I can see that episode on a loop and it always makes me smile bc you can see theyre hardly able to hold their laughter. GENIUS everyone! Script, reseachers, production, actors, everything!
Sir Bernard. The resident expert of needing to know the need to know on a need to know basis for the need to know in the proper discourse of the need to know in a need to know basis.
The best show ever written that line when did we stop bugging Humphrey replies straight face looks at his watch 17minutes ago brilliant today's comedy writers need too look at what makes viewers laugh😀😀😀
@Nebris, they actually show episodes in Political Sciences courses to debate. Its THAT good, bc it is a timless Master Class in Politics, with the added plus of having a good laugh. That's why I bought the whole DVD pack, Yes Minister, and Yes, Prime Minister, bc I knew I was going to watch the dialogues forever and ever. In this Netflix, HBO etc era, Best buy EVER! : D
Genius scriptwriting. Not a word wasted. The English language wielded like a scalpel in the hands of a gifted surgeon
Wtf are you going on about? Sir Humphrey never uttered a word when 10 words would do instead.
@@benzienugent2010 just because filler words don't add meaning to a conversation, doesn't mean they don't have purpose. Every single word uttered had a distinct purpose, and this was how the scriptwriters told the joke well before it was even told. You could get the intended mood of a scene simply by comparing how much rambling they did, and quite how overly complex the vernacular became
@@benzienugent2010
Richard's comment clearly went over your head.
Well said.
@@Rainstorm121 I'm not a native, but I find the comedy very entertaining.
I was a Civil Servant for 25 years and every episode was like being back at my old office. All civil servants adopt a no fault policy. That means you must not make a mistake and therefore get a more rapid promotion. The downside is that you therefore don't actually do anything and in doing nothing you cannot make a mistake. Easy isn't it!
There are some schools of thought that equate the value of governmental deadlock to the value of legislative inaction, deriving theories of economic stability from them.
trevor webb no wonder Dominic wants to give them all a good shake.
Ah Trevor, such wise words. I started working in a wool store in my v.early 20s. We had wool packs in bale stands for floor sweepings. In the rush to get home at the end of the day they were often left full, much to the chagrin of the next shift. One day, in a burst of youthful enthusiasm i made sure to empty them. Along came another chap with a longer work history. He started to remove the wool packs. I watched carefully, conscious i may have got it wrong. No, he just put them back exactly the same way as i had already done. He was just apearing to be busy so he didnt get sent home, or get another dirtier job and no doubt would claim the credit for my good deed.....people say there is no I in team. They are right, but that taught me there isn't a YOU either.
Correct
Strategically sound if tactically suspect!
RIP, Derek. Now, all three of you are gone, yet you'll be with us forever.
???!!! ='-(
No way.....
at Royal United Hospital in Bath on 17 January 2020 at age 82, from complications of heart failure and sepsis, which had followed pneumonia
@@joesila3105 I hope there was medical staff on hand at that hospital! Unlike St. Edwards, in Yes Minister's "Compassionate Society" sketch!
Jesus, I missed that. Can't believe it, so many people involved with this show are now dead but it is an amazing testament to them that it is still being watched.
"Unfortunately, although the answer was indeed clear, simple and straightforward, there is some difficulty in justifiably assigning to it the fourth of the epithets you applied to the statement inasmuch as the precise correlation between the information you communicated and the facts insofar as they can be determined and demonstrated is such as to cause epistemological problems of sufficient magnitude as to lay upon the logical and semantic resources of the English language a heavier burden than they can reasonably be expected to bear." BRILLIANT!!!
It should be "forth" and not "fourth". Well done anyways though.
Haroon forth means onward, fourth was correct in this context.
Thank you for the support! I'm not even native speaker... :D
Yeah my bad.
To all people who assume that they speak english..............you are wrong! lol
The most intelligent comedy series ever written
Apparently Margaret Thatcher loved it
cb9220 Because it paints everyone as neoliberal
We used to watch it in politics A level to see how government worked!
Ian Miles cynical teachers tbh
DIGITALSCREAMS o
"Apparently, the fact that you needed to know was not known at the time that the now known need-to-know was known. And therefore, those that needed to advise and inform the home secretary perhaps felt that the information that he needed, as to whether to inform the highest authority of the known information, was not yet known. And therefore there was no authority for the authority to be informed, because the need-to-know was not at that time known or needed."
I love how Humphrey and Bernard have different ways of being incomprehensible; Humphrey relies on his immense vocabulary to draw on words Hacker won't understand, while Bernard uses a simple vocabulary with ridiculously contorted sentence structures and the repetition of certain words.
Personally, I've never had trouble with Humphrey (I'm a fan of obscure vocabulary so I usually understand each word he uses,) but with Bernard I really have to concentrate.
I have to listen closely to make sense of Sir Humphrey's convoluted dialogue, but some reason its really fun. One of the things that makes Yes Minister and Yes PM one of my favourite shows of all time.
"Apparently, the fact that you needed to know was not known at the time that the now known need-to-know was known. And therefore, those that needed to advise and inform the home secretary perhaps felt that the information that he needed, as to whether to inform the highest authority of the known information, was not yet known. And therefore there was no authority for the authority to be informed, because the need-to-know was not at that time known or needed."
I'm proud I understood this the first time through.
I wonder how many takes it took for that.
Amazing that the actors got through it so well. Better than a tongue twister.
Ive never had trouble following bernard.
"In government, there is ALWAYS something to be discreet about." The last line sums it up well.
e.g Pakistani Army running the country stealing from the poor and pointing to the Kashmir problem which technically and realistically is not a problem except in the minds of the puppets and the cronies of the Pakistani Army so as to create an optical illusion and political dilemma thus creating an international conundrum unable to be resolved and the culprits brought to justice who deliberately have ruined a peaceful state of existence within the Indian Union.
@@mikeykeyes you're crazy
In Cryptography and Computer Security, we have Kerckhoff's principle, which states that any security system should not be broken by transparency. You should always assume everyone else knows how your security systems work. With that assumption you should make a system that they cannot break while knowing of its inner workings.
Politics has not yet reached this insight.
And yes, sometimes secrecy is needed. But it needs to be done for the right reasons. Keeping military strategy, espionage, or internal telephone numbers secret is good, as they are needed for functional operations. Keeping the poverty rates among the employed secret to prevent people from seeing the number of working poor, that is just corrupt dishonesty, as its only purpose is to stop government accountability, the most important part of democracy.
Precisely
Hawthorne and Eddington get a lot of credit for their acting and their monologues, But the guy who played Bernard had one hell of a tongue twister in this scene and he delivered it perfectly while at the same time infusing it with Bernard's personality. Superb acting and much underrated.
Yup bernard is the secret ingredient...
Derek Fowlds and you are right.
He was previously famous for being the long side-kick of the Fox Puppet : Basil Brush..lol
Mr. Derek.
@@Isleofskye I thought the Fox puppet was called Donald Trump... or did you mean Fox with a small 'f'?
@@c2757 LOL I actually rather like Trump but this was Funny... with a big F ! :)
The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very creative mind to spot wrong questions. - Anthony Jay (1930-2016)
Ai. It is sad to see Anthony Jay also passed on to "pastures new, perhaps greener".
I’m 22 years old and born in 97. I watched this out of a whim on gold and now I can’t stop it’s so funny 😂
Rad Derry very true indeed
@@branflakes12341 This show was the point when we generally accepted it's all true, if you see what I mean.
jaxxstraw the corrupt and the bull shit of politics
You can now learn how to speak bureaucracy fluently.
This series will always transcend time.
Perfectly written. Perfectly acted. This series is sublime.
And the amazing thing is that it is still as funny and relevant today ... some 30 years after it was produced!
Human nature hasn't changed. Human nature hasn't changed for a few millennia, unfortunately.
It was Margaret Thatcher's favorite TV show.
@@777Outrigger Canadian PM Brian Mulroney's too.
"when did we stop!"
"17 minutes ago"
Nigel Hawthorne, Paul Eddington and Derek Fowlds simply superb
Love it when Bernard suddenly sounds like Sir Humphrey.
Bernard's contribution sounds remarkably like Donald Rumsfeld's "known unknowns etc" comments during the second Iraq war 14 years after this episode was first shown. Was he a fan of "Yes, Prime Minister"?
"Bernard Wooley" was a "high-flyer", a brilliant graduate from Oxford university, fast-tracked through the Civil Service and given the difficult post of Principal Private Secretary to a minister (Hacker). In that post, he had to carefully balance the confidentiality of the Minister with the requirements of the Civil Service. Being adept at handling this proved that he was destined for high office, eventually (according to the books which accompanied the TV series) becoming Sir Bernard Wooley, Cabinet Secretary. He learned quickly from Sir Humphrey Appleby and developed his linguistic gymnastics from observing him in action.
I always love the fact they're bugging a minister not because he's talking to the Russians but the French.
the feud between english and french people dates waaay back since they were still called Saxon and Franks
@@auto27user longer still even, the Britons against the Romans (with the help of the Gauls who'd been 'civilised' and served as Auxilia), and before that still the tribes of Britannia against the tribes of Gaul. Our two peoples have ever been at war, ever since the English Channel was formed thousands of years ago.
@@greypilgrim228 Britannia tribes were Scots and Irish today, don't think they count. The earliest feud that i know of is around the three emperor crisis round 3rd century
@@auto27user Britannia would not have been exclusively Scots and Irish, many English and Welsh still have traces of ancient Britons ancestry in their DNA. That's like saying because the Scots and Irish bred with Vikings that they're no longer proper Celts. Of course we're still the descendants of the ancient Britons, it's just some of us are closer than others.
@@auto27user Britannia tribes were mainly welsh with scots being a mixture of irish anglo saxon and welsh and irish being welsh. English have british ancestors but are more germanic expecially in the south east while welsh are most similar to neolithic inhabitants (the first people who lived there) though that's mainly the north welsh, with the south welsh having more foreign influence due to migration.
Brilliance beyond Brilliance. There is absolutely no communication today let alone this crisp English speaking that is music to my hears. Sir Humphrey was most gifted Naturally in speech.
"The trouble today has arisen because of your own error of judgment in making this denial." and "You should not have denied something about which you did not know."
So good.
MyLifeForAuir87
Hence the importance of the words "To the best of my knowledge".
As much as the attention goes to Sir Humphrey taking a paragraph to say "You lied," I think I like Bernard's word juggle even more. Both brilliantly written and performed.
Yes .. Bernard was brilliant as well and had some amazing tongue twister dialogue. The three of them were without parallel. What an incredibly clever series with genius writers. Those were the days .
"In Government, there's always something to be discreet about"..... Never truer words hath been spoken, nor written!
The use of the wonderful English language in this series is so clever. Civil servants' perfunctory tittle tattle!!!!
Ah yes the English language, of which I am a native speaker with a local accent where I grew up. Being a native speaker I have been interested in the language and it's history and the more you learn about the language, it is a language a native speaker can have pride in. Stay well and ciao for now
How can it be with so much “content” available today that nothing comes even slightly close to this genius.
Scriptwriters are no longer chosen because they are good, they are chosen because they say the right things and it ticks boxes.
I totally agree. This wonderful dancing with the English language is wonderful. Sadly seen as ‘not cool’ any more. I loved it
@@greerbox i love your word for it: dancing indeed
When standards drop, mediocrity rises to the top.
This was the best of of the best. I miss this show.
The fact that this was the final episode always made me hungry for more. Whilst the episode ended favorably for the PM, and while we did touch on everything that made the series the apex of intellectualism insofar as comedy shows are concerned, it didn't feel like a fitting finale to the lives of these three individuals, not to mention all of their colleagues and acquaintances.
I've decided I need to binge watch every single episode of this series 😂😂😂
WHERE
Good Choice!
@@guguigugu Ive been crazy about this show for 20 years, and as far as I know, apart from 20 yrs ago when it was on the TV, I only could find full episodes by and very sparcely, so I just decided to buy the whole box of Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister. Best buy and cheap at that.
@Edward Walters , trust me, speaking from experience, it NEVER grows old, Ive watched on a loop and every time I still laugh like it was the first time. I mean, where can you find jokes like "Then why did the Germans go into the European Union? to cleanse themselves of genocide and reapply to join the human race" in the Episode where they explain de EEC
ruclips.net/video/rvYuoWyk8iU/видео.html
Tho' if you know the UK, there's another one that makes me cry with laughter, the "Who reads the papers" ep: that's just Sheer Genius!
ruclips.net/video/DGscoaUWW2M/видео.html
Brilliant monologues. How these guys memorised this tongue twisting dialogue is truly amazing.
And they pulled it off in front of a live audience!
Multiple takes
If you compare the first epidode of "yes, Prime Minister" and this one (the last one) you notice Paul Eddington's declining health (which is also why in most of the second season simply sits behind his desk and does not move around a lot) Yet he still manages to put on a stellar performance
British comedy writing at its finest..
Intelligence is beautiful
"Yes Minister" and "Yes, Prime Minister" were the brilliantly conceived versions and written comic chronicles correlating nicely to Tory Chief Whip, Francis Urquhart, and his subsequently memorable and duplicitous reign as Prime Minister in "House of Cards," "To Play A King," and "Final Cut." Both are masterworks of political intrigue, biting satire, willful political public contempt and class social derision.
This is well and truly genius.
Shakespearean level of immortality.
The twist is absolutely amazing. Timeless classics and some of the best
"I know this is a difficult concept to get across to a politician..." hahaha. Fantastic script writing. On the other hand, is this really a script?
Castle Hill Agent .......or a leaked fact!
I met a couple on a train in days gone by, and the husband happened to work for the Australian Civil Service, and he said of this show "Its not a comedy, its a documentary" hahaha
Margaret Thatcher loved this show , and she admitted to giving the writers material based on her experiences of dealing with the civil service. So yeah its pretty true to life.
The closer to reality the funnier.
Which is why it is satire.
As valid today as it was 30 years ago... the mark of a brilliant sitcom... alas all three actors are now managing heaven
A great loss.
What wonderful writing and wonderful casting. The pure genius of this really hits home and i wonder how many meetings boris has had like this
Unforgettable comedy, unlike the forgettable kind we have now.
Top notch script, peerless in its time and still quality today.
These lines are insanely hard to pull off, but they did!
Just here to remember when the Prime Minister lying to the House was “bad”.
Still bad. But also, normal.
@randomguy8196 - It wasn't just bad. Ministers would be expected to resign over such matters. They sometimes did and sometimes didn't but it always damaged their careers.
Superb! Their “Yes Minister” + “Yes Prime Minister” are now my all time favorite comedy series I’ve ever seen. Absolutely Brilliant!
I love it when Sir Humphrey reads out the stationery deliveries.
It was brilliant!
I have all of them on DVD, I watch them regularly and it never gets tired. Sad;y we just lost Bernerd. :o(
It's there on Amazon Prime if you haven't got the DVD yet
Bernard has learnt well at the feet of the master.
This script is pure gold! British comedy at its best! So witty and clever!
" I know this is a difficult concept to get across to a politician." LOL
i have at least seen the show 50 times if not more and still dont get tired of it
Three superb actors with superb scripts by Anthony Jay an insider's view... or machinations of Government still relevant today in Jan 2020
@Chris McCartney that's the genius of it! theyre timeless! That's why theyre shown in political science courses, bc they will always be relevant.
The BEST and CLEVEREST TV show EVER! I have the DVDs and Novels as a bonus!!!
Wonderful timeless classic. Writing' casting' acting. Top class.
Apparently the fact that you needed to know was not known at the time that the now known need to know was known
known.
Intelligent script executed with immense expertise. Not sure there’s been another comedy series as brilliant as this.
the more I listen to Humphrey speeches, the more I can understand it
You should read the books
Quite,It scares me, that I'm starting to understand the gobbledegook!
Wonderful.
As a german,i agree best most intelligent comedy series ever!!!always loved it!
Finally at the end of the series, Bernard learned to talk like Sir Humphrey.
"Epistemological?! What are you talking about?"
"You told a lie."
Lol...PERFECT exchange!
"I need to know everything! How else could I tell whether I need to know it?"
Humphery Appleby
Damn. So smart. And so spot-on. "It's your own fault for not clearing it with your officials."
Sir Nigel Hawthorne must have had so much fun making this.
I never thought I'd see this quote on the front page of the Daily Star! Strange world we live in!
Superb. The whole thing is. It was the most popular program on Irish Television at that time.
From the last episode of - IMO - an amazing, television series.
Outstanding.
I have a philosophy degree, did some epistemology too, I know many complicated words and can speak about abstract concepts, yet I still have to do a double take despite having watched this many times this since I was 14. Nigel Hawthorne and Derek Fowlds are brilliant.
Thank goodness i thought my English sucks to the bottom.
Coming from an American-English language perspective, I had to seriously focus on what was being said to follow it, but found no British-English terms (not counting official titles, etc. of course) that I did not immediately understand. Absolutely well done! Definitely understandable and long-winded, but hilarious nonetheless! 😅
I generally understood Sir Humphrey's paragraph-length sentences, but Bernard and Sir Frank Gordon (I think the latter has only one such instance of circumlocution) were difficult.
This sums up the civil service more succinctly than anything I have ever seen.
I have watched a lot of these marvelous scenes, but this is easily my favorite! I particularly love his final line, "in government, there is always something to be discreet about" -- take that Wikileaks!
To decide to conceal: A heavy burden. To decide not to reveal: Standard procedure.
You are very insulting, but not convincing. how this specifically an argument for Wikilleaks?
You are very insulting, but not very convincing. Unless you assume that it is always wrong for the government to use surveillance (bugging telephones, for example), this is in no way an argument for indiscrimate leaking of government secrets, let alone Wikileaks in particular. Surveillance can be done to detect wrongdoing; is it your belief that only governments engage in wrongdoing? I wish life were that simple. And since Wikileaks has facilitated the rise to power of an authoritarian clique you are in no position to lecture others about facilitating despotism.
You are very insulting, but not very convincing. Unless you assume that it is always wrong for the government to use surveillance (bugging telephones, for example), this is in no way an argument for indiscrimate leaking of government secrets, let alone Wikileaks in particular. Surveillance can be done to detect wrongdoing; is it your belief that only governments engage in wrongdoing? I wish life were that simple. And since Wikileaks has facilitated the rise to power of an authoritarian clique you are in no position to lecture others about facilitating despotism.
You are very insulting, but not very convincing. Unless you assume that it is always wrong for the government to use surveillance (bugging telephones, for example), this is in no way an argument for indiscrimate leaking of government secrets, let alone Wikileaks in particular. Surveillance can be done to detect wrongdoing; is it your belief that only governments engage in wrongdoing? I wish life were that simple. And since Wikileaks has facilitated the rise to power of an authoritarian clique you are in no position to lecture others about facilitating despotism.
Good lord, I almost forgot how amazing this was wras; both in terms of the writing and the acting
When I watch this show, I sense some of my dead braincells revivify.
What I find most telling about this scene is that Hacker was primarily bothered about being seen to have misled the House and that things were being kept from him but he didn't seem at all concerned (let alone outraged) that Halifax was being bugged. Hypocrisy at its finest - someone who had their priorities right would've demanded the answer to that first. But Hacker had been completely and utterly house-trained by this point; he'd long gone native.
Turb0 Flat4 ... but to be found to have misled the house would have meant he was in contempt of parliament. Probably the end of his political career.
To mislead the house is standard procedure. To be found to have mislead the house, is political suicide.
Then he shouldn't have told him!
@@lachyt5247 very practical indeed. Those who believe that bugging is reprehensible are the same people who believe in equality and justice; all perfectly good ideas, of course, but ideas hopelessly unrealistic in politics.
The same Damned practice if every President of the U.S. since FDR who 'secretly bugged' his own conversations (for future protection--LoL). Presidents all claim the Moral High-ground to Defend the 4 Freedoms of FDR...then meet with the G-7, or G-20 to sell that concept OUT!!..
Absolutely fantastic :).
So beautifully written.
The greatest ever pol comedy ...and really good and well informed ....may it never die!
To much dialogue .The punchline is to complex .That laugh track machine is awesomely bad .😯👎
@@keswarnathragbar8225 not a laugh track - live audiance. Just because you don't understand it enough to see the humour don't start thinking none of us understand it.
This is amazing. I love this tipe of comedy. Just brilliant
Nobody seems to mention the writers, they are the ones that came up with the dialogue, brilliant though the delivery and cast are, don’t forget they made it brilliant for the actors.
One of the writers, Sir Anthony Jay, was also a speechwriter for the conservative prime minister
@Cliff UK I dont think ANYONE forgets the script writers: there would be no show without them, its a group effort, between the most genius of writers and the best actors, but all of us who are crazy about this show, love it BECAUSE of its amazingly timless scripts!! I found out some episodes are shown and debated in Political Science courses, which is not surprising at all, given the inmense quality of its writing. WE NEVER FORGET THE WRITERS, that's why we have been watching on a loop for almost 20 years, in my case!!
vulturebitch 👍😁
Any one who is the head of an organisation - be it government, business, charity or family - who is expected to exercise due care, skill and diligence based on their individual capacity, to exercise their own judgment in making decisions; will always, always have something to be discrete about.
Such persons often confuse what they ASSUME or THINK they know with what they ACTUALLY know; and what they WANT to say with what they NEED to say.
Excellent writing, Tony Jay & Jon Lynn.
Agree, but the word is discreet. Discrete is another word entirely.
how did they do this stuff without laughing, classic
@Neville Abbott there is one episode which I love in which I caught the brilliant and never ever breaking character Sir Nigel Hawthorne (Sir Humphrey ) laughing under his nose: its at the beggining of the episode "Who reads the Papers" on Yes, Prime Minister. And when Derek Fowlds says his final line, I think he buries his head on the table bc he too is laughing out loud. :D .I can see that episode on a loop and it always makes me smile bc you can see theyre hardly able to hold their laughter. GENIUS everyone! Script, reseachers, production, actors, everything!
@@vulturebitch the script would have been known, but it must have been Fowlds delivery that did it.
Sir Bernard. The resident expert of needing to know the need to know on a need to know basis for the need to know in the proper discourse of the need to know in a need to know basis.
Brilliance. Pure brilliance.
Brilliant, brilliant, brilliant!
A master piece that never dies. It would be true and would still make sense in 2120!?
Brilliant, just... brilliant.
Love this show.
Keep coming here to see Bernard explaining the need to know 😂
Donald Rumsfeld watched this before his famous ‘Known knowns’ speech 🤣🤣🤣🤣
I love Bernard. So innocent yet so complex.
Bernard wasn't actually innocent. Idealistic and loyal, yes, but not innocent.
Love Bernard
The back and forth wordplay on this is comedic genius!! So well written and scripted!!
Absolutely brilliant!
Pure acting brilliance.
Such an amazing satiricial dialogue and orataory use of the English Language
The best show ever written that line when did we stop bugging Humphrey replies straight face looks at his watch 17minutes ago brilliant today's comedy writers need too look at what makes viewers laugh😀😀😀
This show is a great tool to improve my english skills
When perfect acting meets perfect writing.
I can't even begin to imagine how the actors could perform this in front of a studio audience.
so splendid...
As Basil Brush would say!
In a lot of ways, this scene, with the "now known need to know" is the British equivalent of "Who's On First?"
All time favorite👍👍
So brilliant, so clever ...
Always been my favourite comedy!
This predated Donald Rumsfeld's "Known knowns" by many years!!
This series is a Master Class in Politics.
@Nebris, they actually show episodes in Political Sciences courses to debate. Its THAT good, bc it is a timless Master Class in Politics, with the added plus of having a good laugh. That's why I bought the whole DVD pack, Yes Minister, and Yes, Prime Minister, bc I knew I was going to watch the dialogues forever and ever. In this Netflix, HBO etc era, Best buy EVER! : D
Sir Humphreys nuanced delivery is beautiful