British sitcom Yes, Minister goes Dutch

“The classic British sitcom Yes, Minister has been shown in many countries around the world, but only two – India and Turkey – have purchased the rights to the format and made their own version. Now there’s going to be a Dutch version. Public broadcasting organisation VPRO has awarded a contract to independent production company S&V Fiction to make an updated version, which will be called Sorry, Minister, reflecting Dutch public life in 2009.”

“Of course, many things will be adapted. Devious civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby will be replaced by a woman in the Dutch version. The minister’s principal private secretary will be re-cast as an assistant private secretary called Mohammed, who’s Moroccan, in a bid to reflect the multi-ethnic character of Dutch public life. In some respects, bearing in mind the Dutch system of proportional representation and the fact that every government here is a coalition, there should be even more material for the scriptwriters than in the original.”

I’m still laughing at the sorry part!

View the announcement and a clip from the show from British television.

(Link: radionetherlands.nl)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 at 10:03 am and is filed under Dutch first. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Tags: British sitcom, television