TheMenFromTheMinistry audio oldtimeradio radioprograms English radio comedy, broadcast from 1962-77 and 1980. Written by John Graham and Edward Taylor, produced by Edward Taylor, and starring Wilfrid Hyde-White (series 1 and 2), Deryck Guyler (series 3 to 14) and Richard Murdoch (series 1 to 14); with Norma Ronald as Mildred (series 1 to 14). This is a gently satirical comedy about the British civil service, set in a (fictional) government ministry in Whitehall called the 'General Assistance Department', that supplies help to any government department which is overloaded. The stars of the show are Number One (initially Mr Hamilton-Jones, played by Wilfrid Hyde-White; later Mr Derek Lennox-Brown, played by Deryck Guyler) and Number Two (Mr Richard Lamb, played by Richard Murdoch). They are assisted by secretary Mildred (played by Norma Ronald), and perpetually at odds with their boss, Sir Gregory Pitkin (played latterly by Ronald Baddiley). Deryck Guyer took over the lead in the show when Wilfrid Hyde-White was unavailable for the recording of the third series, due to filming commitments in Hollywood. The name of Guyler's character, Mr Lennox-Brown, came about because in real life he was married to one of the sisters in a music-hall act called The Lennox Three. This collection comprises all the editions of the show which have been broadcast on BBC Radio 7, plus some rare editions from the 1980 series which was broadcast only on BBC World Service (so has never been heard in the UK, apart from one edition which was broadcast in 1990 as a tribute to Richard Murdoch, following his death earlier that year). There are many recordings from this show floating about the internet in poor quality, but none of those are included here: these recordings are top-quality only. The files listed in the column VBR MP3 are not in fact variable bit rate files. This is a column for files which do not fall into any of the Archive's standard bitrate categories. Most of these on this page are 80 Kbps, at a sample rate of 48 kHz. Old Time Radio; OTR; Comedy; The Men From The Ministry 2007-07-30 12:38:44 2007-07-30 12:38:04 otr_man@hotmail.com Ed 999 Ed 999 Ed 999 Ed 999 Ed 999 Ed 999 Ed 999 Ed 999 Ed 999 Ed 999 2007-07-30 12:42:12 2007-07-30 12:49:54 2007-07-30 14:08:05 2007-07-31 12:43:53 2007-07-31 14:12:32 2007-07-31 17:44:28 2007-07-31 20:46:59 2007-09-16 15:19:07 2008-10-22 19:43:09 2009-01-14 16:07:47 2009-01-14 16:24:44 Ed 999