138 - The Men From The Ministry

Comedy Slab

The Men from the Ministry was broadcast by the BBC between 1962 and 1977 and starred Wilfrid Hyde-White and Richard Murdoch until 1966, when Deryck Guyler replaced Hyde-White.
It was written and produced by Edward Taylor with contributions from John Graham, and with some early episodes written by Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke, it ran for 13 series, totalling 145 half-hour episodes and two specials.
The series is about lazy, bungling, incompetent civil servants, "Number One" – Roland Hamilton-Jones (Wilfrid Hyde-White) and later Deryck Lennox-Brown (Deryck Guyler), "Number Two" – Richard Lamb (Richard Murdoch), with their dim, typo-prone, teenage secretary, Mildred Murfin (Norma Ronald), all watched-over by the lecherous, pompous, self-seeking Permanent Under-Secretary Sir Gregory Pitkin (Roy Dotrice and later Ronald Baddiley), all members of the British Civil Service based in Whitehall.
The characters are portrayed as inept, greedy, selfish and incompetent but never malicious and the humour was very light-hearted. There was also a little broad satire in many episodes although later series tended to recycle older scripts.
Written by Edward Taylor & John Graham
Produced by Edward Taylor
A BBC Radio Production.
The Men From The Ministry is available here: https://bbc.in/3sXR542
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