Yes Minister, perhaps more than any other TV show on this list so far, is quintessentially British. It's not a show you can really see being translated to another country, since it's so rooted in the clustercuss that is British politics, with the biting satire occasionally cutting a little too close to the bone. It's similar to how the American Veep feels a little off when compared to the UK's The Thick Of It, despite them sharing a writing staff an propensity towards inventive swearing; the way things work on Capitol Hill are just so totally different from Westminster. There's an even greater gulf between Westminster and how things are done in India, but that didn't stop the Star network from retooling Yes Minister for an Eastern audience with Ji Mantriji, some twenty years after the original went off the air. Instead of the slightly bumbling eponymous politician Jim Hacker we got introduced to Suryaprakash Singh, while Jayant Kripalani played his right hand man, Rajnath Mathur, the equivalent of the conniving and underhanded Sir Humphrey who actually seems to be running things. Yes Minister followed a natural evolution where Hacker and Humphrey were eventually installed in 10 Downing Street, the show changing its name to Yes Prime Minister for the final series. No such luck for Ji Mantriji, sadly. Clips of the show are hard to come by, as are reviews, but there's some pretty damning evidence in the fact that the series was cancelled in India after just one series. We're not sure if the comedy just didn't translate, or if perhaps the Indian political system and its corrupt machinations just work in a different way to how they do in Britain, but whatever it was, the remake just didn't take. Although thinking about it, an Indian Thick Of It might be pretty good, just to see what insults their Malcolm Tucker could come up with...
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
