The Complete Yes Prime Minister
Jonathan Lynn and Antony Jay's celebrated political comedy has drawn praise from some remarkably well-placed admirers. Richard Last, writing in The Times, described it as 'scalpel-sharp in observation' with 'the classical perfection of a Mozart sonata.' High praise, and it's entirely warranted. The writing skewers the inner workings of government with a precision that feels almost uncomfortably accurate. Margaret Thatcher herself admitted it gave her 'hours of pure joy,' which says something rather pointed about how truthfully it captures life in the corridors of power. Whether she was laughing with it or at her colleagues is, of course, another question. John Coldstream in the Daily Telegraph called it 'a continuing marvel' and a collector's essential, and you'll struggle to argue with that verdict once you've spent any time with it. It occupies a category largely of its own making. Witty without being smug, politically astute without becoming a lecture, it pulls off the rare trick of being both genuinely funny and quietly devastating. Celia Brayfield, also writing in The Times, simply declared it 'a comedy in a class of its own.' For anyone who has ever suspected that government runs more on evasion than decision, this book will feel less like fiction and rather more like a document.
- Author: Jonathan Lynn
- Publisher: BBC Books
- Genre: Film & Cinema
- ISBN: 978-0563207733
- Pages: 512 pages