The speech. From Yes, Minister

Yes, Minister was one of the most popular BBC comedy series in the 1970s. 
Politicians particularly found it very funny, even the well-known conservative Prime Minister of the time, Mrs. Thatcher, once said it was her favourite programme.

Watch an excerpt of one the most memorable episodes of the series, called The Speech:


Now, post your comments for the following questions:

Have you enjoyed the clip?
Which blunder does Mr. James Hacker, the Minister, make?
Do you think the clip is a good example of British humour?
How different is it from any Spanish comedy series?

Comentarios

  1. I´ve enjoyed the clip beacause it shows how politicians make mistakes without care about them. In this case, the Minister read both times the same speech and he has only changed little things.

    In my opinion, both British and Spanish joke about politicians.However, any Spanish comedy serie makes fun about people in power mistakes.

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    1. Exactly, without caring about them, that's it!.
      The Minister is reading almost the same speech twice and he doesn't even realize about it.
      Both the British and the Spaniards tell jokes about politicians, that's true, but no Spanish TV comedy programme makes fun about the mistakes of those in power.

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  2. I think that this clip is really funny and a fantastic example of British humour.
    First, the Minister gets wrong with him speech. After that,he realises that the speech that he had prepared for this event is completely the same to the previous one.
    Nowadays in our country there are more and more comedy series which critize the politicians so I consider that British comedies are not very different than ours.

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    1. First The Minister gets the wrong speech, and afterwards he realizes that both speeches are the same.
      It might true that in Spain there are more and more series that critisize politicians, but I do think there is quite a difference between British and Spanish TV series.
      The BBC will always be the BBC!

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  3. The Minister reads one speech but unfortunately it is a wrong speech.Apparently the second speech it is the correct one,but in fact it is the same speech with only some changes.So, we can take into account that politicians are stupid persons that do not take care about what they say or promise.
    I think that it is a good example of British humour since it was a successful program during a long period.But in Spain it would not have such success since we prefer another kind of humour.I have not enjoyed at all.

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    1. It is the wrong speech, indeed!
      The second speech is the correct one, although they both exactly the same.
      So we might regard politicians as stupid people.
      The programme was succesful for a long period of time, true, that for sure in Spain it would not have been so successful.
      Sorry you have not enjoyed it, British humour is sometimes difficult to understand!

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  4. At the begining the clip was a bit difficult for me to understand, but when I understood the conversations, I really enjoyed it.
    The Minister started to read a speech directed to architects, when his speech would be directed to farmers.
    Personally, I like British humour and I think this clip is a good example of it.
    In my opinion, in Spain humour is completely different. When you watch Spanish comedy series you always see a group of stupid people saying sweawords and talking about sex.

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    1. Beginnings have always been difficult.
      A speech delivered to architects instead of to farmers was a big blunder, wasn't it?

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  5. 1.If I have enjoyed the clip? After repeting it several times and try to understand it yes I have enjoyed.
    2.he made the mistake of changing the speech for one he had done the day before, and one he started reading the right one, everybody realized that was exactly the same, the only thing that changed was the aim people it was directed to.
    3.Yes I think so it is very British homour, a little sarcastic an ironic with a lot of meaning
    hiden in it.
    4.I find Spanish comedy series tend to be rude, and they find funny jokes related with sex with being naked and so on.I feel more identify with English homour, as I said before more ironic.One British comedy serie I loved was "the Roppers". It was shown in our TV a lot of years ago.

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    1. Repeating once and again and trying to understand the clip is good practice, Paloma.
      Once he started reading the supposedly right speech, everybody realized it was exactly the same as the previous one, with the only change of the target audience.
      Glad you feel identified with British humour, since it is more ironic.
      The Ropers, George and Mildred, Three's Company, and so on, are wonderful examples, I also loved them when shown on our TV.

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  6. I think the clip was quite funny and it showed a show-off Minister who thinks he knows everything.However, when he grabbed the wrong speech and went on reading it he didn't know how to deal with it.
    I think this is a right example of British humour but from my point of view they are totally bad at being comidians.They definitely lack of sense of humour.

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    1. I absolutely disagree with you, I think they are great comedians and they don't lack sense of humour, but quite the opposite. However, it is true that British sense of humour is a bit hard to understand sometimes.

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