'Scalpel-sharp in observation, deceptively simplein construction... at its frequent bestYes Prime Minister exhibits the classical perfection of aMozart sonata' - Richard Last in The Times'Its closely observed portrayal of what goes on in thecorridors of power has given me hours of pure joy'- Rt Hon. Margaret Thatcher MP'Yes Prime Minister... is not only a continuing marvel ofediting by Jonathan Lynn and An...

I have a voice in the University, I'm in the House of Lords, I have this lovely permanent home. Everything's hunky-dory. I just need a bit of help.Jim Hacker is back - older, but perhaps not wiser, utterly bewildered by the world today. Hoping for a quiet retirement as Master of Hacker College, Oxford, instead Jim finds himself facing a very modern crisis: cancelled by the college committee.Enter the delightfully devious Sir Humphrey Appleby, who has lost...

Phillipe Pétain, a tough, uncompromising soldier who rose through the ranks to save France in 1916 Battle of Verdun. Charles de Gaulle, the aristocratic, academic and equally uncompromising soldier who led France to freedom when, decades later, Pétain became a Nazi collaborator.Two giants of the twentieth century who loved each other like father and son until they found themselves on opposing sides in World War II. In 1945 de Gaulle had his oldest friend tried for treason. Their co...

I have a voice in the University, I'm in the House of Lords, I have this lovely permanent home. Everything's hunky-dory. I just need a bit of help.'I wanted to write the final chapter about Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey Appleby, now in their eighties, discarded, ignored, watching today's world with utter bewilderment. An elegiac play about old age and loss - loss of power, loss of influence, loss of friends, loss of family. The only play I've seen on this theme is King L...

Jonathan Lynn's credits include creating and co-writing the long-running comedy series Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister, as well as hit films Clue, My Cousin Vinny, Nuns on the Run and The Whole Nine Yards. With experience as a comedy actor, writer and director, here Jonathan Lynn shares valuable and hilarious lessons in all aspects of creating great comedy, all illustrated with brilliantly insightful and revealing anecdotes about his work and the l...

Yes, Minister, and the equally successful sequel Yes, Prime Minister captured a niche in the political consciousness of the nation. First broadcast thirty years ago, the original writers of these classic series have reunited to create a bang up to date Yes, Prime Minister for the stage.Spin, blackberries, sexed-up dossiers, sleaze, global warming and a country on the brink of financial meltdown form the backdrop to mayhem at Chequers as the Foreign Minister of Kum...

For Victor Cox, a professor of film history, the Hollywood films noirs of the 1940s and 1950s are more real than his daily life. When his wife is found drowned, Cox is the first murder suspect. He falls in love with a student who looks like the 1920s film star Louise Brooks, but she disappears at a Belgian seaside resort. Smeared in lipstick in their hotel room are the words "No Sale," the same words Elizabeth Taylor wrote on a mirror in Butterfield 8. Subsequently, a ser...

For the first time in one audio collection, all sixteen Yes Minister radio episodes plus six further TV episodes, fourteen Yes Prime Minister episodes and two bonus sketches.Between 1980 and 1988 on BBC television and radio, the exploits of the Rt Hon Jim Hacker MP (Paul Eddington) - later Prime Minister - kept the British nation enthralled.Helped - and hampered - by his diligent Permanent Secretary Sir Humphrey Appleby (Nigel Hawthorne) and his Principle ...

This is not a book about politics. It is a book about what makes us British, and what makes us European.Spend time with some of your favourite writers and artists in this truly unique collection spanning everything from art, language, food, music and movies, to war, literature, driving, nudity, geography, smoking and nature.Featuring pieces of exceptional quality from some of our most treasured novelists, historians, journalists, poets an...

A behind-the-scenes history of one of the most successful and admired British sitcoms of the 1980s.In 1977 the BBC commissioned a new satirical sitcom set in Whitehall . Production of its first series was stalled, however, by the death throes of Jim Callaghan's Labour government and the 'Winter of Discontent'; Auntie being unwilling to broadcast such an overtly political comedy until after the general election of 1979.That Yes Minister shoul...

From the 1920s to the early 1960s, Manhattan was America's beacon of sophistication. From the theatres of Broadway to the lobby of the Algonquin Hotel to tables at the Stork Club, intelligence and wit were the twinned coins of the realm. Alexander Woolcott, Irving Berlin, Edna Ferber, Arturo Toscanini, Leonard Bernstein, Cole Porter, Dorothy Parker, Truman Capote, the Lunts and Helen Hayes presided over the town. Their books, plays, performances, speeches, dinner parties, masked balls, lov...

Equal parts Sherlock Holmes and P.G. Wodehouse, Charles Finch's debut mystery A Beautiful Blue Death introduces a wonderfully appealing gentleman detective in Victorian London who investigates crime as a diversion from his life of leisure.Charles Lenox, Victorian gentleman and armchair explorer, likes nothing more than to relax in his private study with a cup of tea, a roaring fire and a good book. But when his lifelong friend Lady Jane asks for his help, ...