Portal:BBC

Yes Minister is a British political satire sitcom written by Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn. Comprising three seven-episode series, it was first transmitted on BBC2 from 1980 to 1984. A sequel, Yes, Prime Minister, ran for 16 episodes from 1986 to 1988. All but one of the episodes lasted half an hour, and almost all ended with a variation of the title of the series spoken as the answer to a question posed by Minister (later, Prime Minister) Jim Hacker. Several episodes were adapted for BBC Radio; the series also spawned a 2010 stage play that led to a new television series on Gold in 2013.

Set principally in the private office of a British cabinet minister in the fictional Department of Administrative Affairs in Whitehall, Yes Minister follows the ministerial career of Jim Hacker, played by Paul Eddington. His various struggles to formulate and enact policy or effect departmental changes are opposed by the British Civil Service, in particular his Permanent Secretary, Sir Humphrey Appleby, played by Nigel Hawthorne. His Principal Private Secretary Bernard Woolley, played by Derek Fowlds, is usually caught between the two. The sequel, Yes, Prime Minister, continued with the same cast and followed Hacker after his unexpected elevation to prime ministerial office. (Full article...)

Graeme Garden, Barry Cryer and Alison Steadman (left-to-right) during a recording of the BBC Radio 4 programme You'll Have Had Your Tea: The Doings of Hamish and Dougal.

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Sir Michael Thomas Lyons (born 15 September 1949) is a British politician and former chairman of the BBC Trust (now the BBC Board). He currently serves as non-executive chairman of the English Cities Fund and chairs the board of the SQW Group.

A former British Labour Party councillor and council chief executive in the United Kingdom, he was involved in some of the key central government commissions and reports into local government finance from 2000 to 2007. (Full article...)

Broadcasting House on Portland Place in London is the headquarters of the BBC. Opened in 1932, the building is also the home to Radio 3, Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra. For the past decade, the building has seen massive change, with sections demolished and a large extension added.

Highlights from Wikipedia's Did you know

• ... that author Jacqueline Wilson described Dustbin Baby, the BBC dramatisation of her novel of the same name, as the best ever film adaptation of her work?

• ... that Andrew Lloyd Webber was concerned about casting a dog in the BBC television series Over the Rainbow?

• ... that BBC traffic reporter Sally Traffic has also narrated poetry albums for the blind?

• ... that Clothes-Line, aired in 1937, was the first television programme on fashion history and also probably the first to feature a heavily pregnant female presenter?

• ... that the BBC Sound Archive was founded in 1936 by Marie Slocombe while she was working as a temporary secretary disposing of sound recordings?

• ... that in 2014, BBC Three cancelled a debate on being gay and Muslim featuring Asifa Lahore, a Muslim drag queen, citing security concerns at the mosque where it was filmed?
• ... that the programming language Acorn System BASIC was so non-standard that one commenter suggested that using it on the BBC Micro would be a disaster?
• ... that after criticising horsegiirL's "My Barn My Rules" live on air, the British DJ Arielle Free was suspended from BBC Radio 1 for a week?
• ... that BBC Breakfast's resident doctor Nighat Arif has advocated for more women to be given vibrators for medical reasons?