Paul Eddington was hesitant about playing Hacker

It has been revealed that Paul Eddington did not originally want to play the role of Jim Hacker MP in the sitcom Yes Minister.

In a forthcoming episode of the BBC documentary series Comedy Connections, to be shown next Friday, John Howard Davies, the former head of BBC Comedy says that Eddington turned down the part of the Minister of Administrative Affairs. Davies says: "He said it would never work, that politics wasn't funny and that politicians were horrible."

However, Eddington was later persuaded to play the role and became highly successful. Yes Minister and the sequel Yes, Prime Minister won several BAFTAs, and achieved a top 10 spot in the BBC's Britain's Best Sitcom poll. It also became the favourite show of the then real-life Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Comedy Connections, a documentary that explores the links between different comedy series, started last Friday with a look at the controversial sitcom Till Death Do Us Part. The episode is currently available on the BBC iPlayer. The other comedies that will be examined by the documentary show this series are The Liver Birds, Dad's Army, Rab C. Nesbitt, Little Britain, Ripping Yarns and Sorry!