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Featuring the hilarious exploits of the bumbling bureaucrats of the General Assistance Department, the show starred Wilfrid Hyde-White and later Deryck Guyler as the hapless ‘Number One’, with Richard Murdoch as his hare-brained sidekick ‘Number Two’. Together, they muddled their way through Whitehall, creating chaos with their mix-ups, misunderstandings and mismanagement – to the consternation of their boss, the self-serving Permanent Under-Secretary Sir Gregory Pitkin (Roy Dotrice and Ronald Baddiley).

Here are four episodes of classic comedy from the days when the Civil Service had a sense of humour. The Men from the Ministry were the hilarious radio forerunners of TV's Yes Minister — bungling bureaucrats who bungled for 15 glorious years from 1962 to 1977.

The original ‘Yes Minister’, The Men from the Ministry was a radio comedy phenomenon, running for 15 years and 13 series between 1962 and 1977, with a final fourteenth series broadcast internationally in 1980. In this second volume, featuring 35 specially chosen episodes from Series 4-7, bumbling bowler-hatted bureaucrats Deryck Lennox-Brown and Richard Lamb (aka ‘Number One’ and ‘Number Two’) cause confusion in the corridors of power as they attempt to tackle the many and varied challenges of the General Assistance Department.

For fifteen years between 1962 and 1977, The Men from the Ministry kept audiences laughing over the course of 13 series, plus a fourteenth series recorded for overseas in 1980. This third volume features the complete Series 8 and 9, eleven episodes from Series 10 and the 1971 special ‘Gone to Pot’. We pay another visit to the General Assistance Department, where eager executives Deryck Lennox-Brown and Richard Lamb (‘Number One’ and ‘Number Two’) are flummoxed once more by the challenges that come their way.

More classic comedy from the days when the Civil Service had a sense of humour. The Men from the Ministry were the hilarious radio forerunners of TV's Yes Minister, bungling bureaucrats who bungled for fifteen glorious years from 1962 to 1977. Muddling through were Wilfrid Hyde White, as the first head of the ubiquitous General Assistance Department, and the imperturbable Deryck Guyler, who followed him in 1966. Richard Murdoch was their faithfully incompetent Number Two.

The hugely popular precursor to ‘Yes Minister’, The Men from the Ministry had the nation in stitches for 13 series between 1962 and 1977. In 1980, a fourteenth series, comprising remakes of episodes from Series 1-4, was made by the BBC Transcription Service and aired abroad. Some of these remakes are the only surviving versions of their stories, as recordings of series 1-4 have been lost to time.