The Men from the Ministry

A satire of the civil service that never needed television. Richard Murdoch leads a cast that includes Wilfrid Hyde-White, Deryck Guyler and Norma Ronald as officials whose talent for making things worse turns every simple errand into a national incident, across 146 episodes from 1962 to 1977. Edward Taylor, who also produced, wrote it with partners including Johnnie Mortimer and Brian Cooke, and the plotting is tighter than most farce of the period. Anyone who has filled in a form in triplicate will recognize the targets, which is why it has dated less than its age suggests.